Magical combination of stupidity and hubris - Software Engineer Trondent Employee Review

1.0
10 Jul 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

It's a casual dress environment. If you're in Development, the work environment is positive and professional. On the business side, it's the complete opposite situation. The Profile team and NetOps have good managers. The development manager is new but is catching on quickly, and the development team has a lot of good people. The benefits are decent and the work life balance is not bad.

Cons

The CEO is gone 2 months each year on top of being out every Friday, not what you would expect in a small company that has financial challenges. And, as others have mentioned here, he likes to drop f-bombs. A lot. Constantly. So he comes off more like a biker bar manager than the technical visionary he claims to be. This is the biggest con. The Sales team couldn't sell space heaters in the Arctic. They don't know how to use the products they sell, and it's painfully obvious to the clients. You'd think they'd be embarrassed, but no they believe they are at the top of their game. Hubris and stupidity never lead to success. HR is made up of one person who has the foulest language and the worst attitude towards working with other employees. It's laughable that they selected her for this position, but that alone tells you most of the story here. Product Support has no idea how the products work, and all of the client problems are left to Development to solve. The NetOps group is usually in fire-fighting mode because of the lack of investment by the owner, so most of their time is spent keeping hardware that should be in a museum running. But they manage somehow, which is a saving grace for this company. They run the company but get very little support and are the last to know about anything. Development has gotten better, but most of the product code is old and heavily patched, and it's written in an old language that few companies use. Good people have joined this team, but eventually get battered by the owner and the Sales team, and they eventually leave, so they're always training someone new or transitioning knowledge from somebody who is leaving. Not a great situation.

Explore other reviews about Trondent

4.0
13 Jan 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Casual dress code, decent salary and PTO, health insurance and benefits were actually far better than I've previously experienced, people are quite kind for the most part, friendly/fun company outings. Despite what's being tossed around on here, I actually found the management team to be extremely knowledgeable, fair, and genuinely interested in what you had to say. The CEO is out quite a bit, and is a fairly quiet man, but he has a heart of gold. The HR manager - who is actually the company's VP of Finance and Accounting, but got sort of molded into a non-existent HR department - is so easy to talk to, knows her stuff, and makes most everyone smile. She just doesn't tolerate BS or incapable people trying to squeeze what they can out of this company - which could be why some people find an issue in her. But she, like the CEO, has a heart of gold as well. There's more of a family atmosphere than some people like to give it credit for. It was overall not a bad place to work at ALL - I actually quite enjoyed my time here and what I learned.

Cons

Office is fairly dreary, sometimes there's such a surplus of work to get done that you feel overwhelmed, others there's nothing to occupy your time with, there's obvious office gossip/etc., but that comes anywhere, some of the higher ups that have been hired in the past have been disastrous screw ups (lying about their experience, creating issues for everyone else) but usually it gets taken care of.

1
2.0
29 Jan 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Family like atmosphere, Owners really care about the employees

Cons

Lack of a standard training process when hired on.

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