Pros
Surprisingly, they are not too stingy when it comes to hardware for their employees. They set you up quite decently with a workstation. Although I do feel I am lacking in experience with regards to this, this seems like something that should be quite typical. Someone mentioned you get a good grasp of databases and SQL which is true. This is how you manage to keep your head above water here. Without this skill you are effectively useless . Leaving here made me appreciate when a company takes care of their employees.
Cons
The last two reviews have provoked me to write my own take on my time at ZE Powergroup. Not necessarily in response to the reviews themselves, more so to the futile attempts being made by whomever is tasked with monitoring Glassdoor at ZE whom is downplaying and discrediting the reviews by insinuating that they are fake. This is the type of knee jerk reaction a certain unpopular presidential administration is famous for. Do you really think that that these reviews are being posted by a competitor? Ridiculous. The only company I could even imagine doing something so dishonest would be this company. I spent far too long at this company. I have never felt so chewed up and spit out in my life. I had no concept of how badly I was being treated until I left and realized how employees are treated in the real world. This is how they get away with this. People with little company experience are hired and retained due to their low salary expectations and lack of a better understanding of the concept of a reputable company. The majority of which are from countries with harsher working conditions and lower standards of living so unfortunately will take this type of treatment and deem it as acceptable. But this is Vancouver, a city that not only promotes the fact that it is one of the world’s ‘most livable’ but also has a tendency to be incredibly expensive. The wages that are on offer at this place are insulting and the closest thing to minimum wage you will receive working in the tech industrty. The hours are long and there are no real rewards for anything you might consider going out of your way or beyond the call of duty. Yet the expectancy is very much still there. There are so many things wrong with how this company treats its employees and how they get away with it. If you mention the lack of social events or activities they will correct me by referencing the many ‘pot-luck’ and ‘sports day’ events they hold. The pot luck is simply requesting employees cook food at home and bring it in to serve. The company has virtually no expenditure in relation to these events. The sports day is like an elementary school outing. You are taken outside to participate in 2 hours of various made up games like one might expect at a five year old’s birthday party. Again, not one cent is contributed to this. Except a few Costco pizzas at the end. One of the most recent reviews mentioned the finger pointing and hostile nature and ‘team vs. team’ attitude displayed here. They are completely correct. Being thrown under a bus at this place is highly regular so people can cover themselves. There is no comradery between departments. If they are not on your team they are incompetent. But the fact of the matter is that they have failed to prepare or train any of their employees for a lot of the situations that arise, and as a result of this anything that they consider to be an ‘incident’ is met with people acting like decapitated chickens on a hot surface. I do believe there are some good people here who know what they are doing, but their voice will never be heard so long as the top level of management is running this company. This level of management is where the name of the product and the company is derived from, which is actually a good indicator of how narcissistic they are from the get go.