Lab49 Reviews

The problem with reviews like this is that there is always a biased narrative, with this is mind - here's mine! There are many con's, the hardest part is picking a starting point.. Most of the reviews below say it all 'Beaten Dog Syndrome', 'Awful, just awful' being my current favourite. Lets start with Agile, this word will be thrown around like an empty tracksuit at lab49.. However, the true meaning of the word at Lab has manifested into something other than the common understanding. If your a true agile evangelist stay well away, this is not for you! The organisation has no concept of team driven development, more a state of powerpoint dictatorship - deck after deck of process change - none of it created with agility or the team in mind, more a sense of buzzwords or lingo bingo. Sprints fail constantly, with teams being driven to death during the final stages. Across the senior management level their is little or no agile experience as most of them have worked / trodden the same career path at Lab for many years. Over that past year Lab changed its operating model, it's clear to me that the best man for the job was pushed to one side, delivery does not belong under the ownership of technology - creates a moral issue and conflict of interest, especially if the new leaderships only insight into delivery comes from a few books listed on Amazon. As a global entity the organisation is shameful, due to the unique and exciting way senior management operate tension is high whilst trust is low. their is a hidden circle at Lab, if your in the click you will do well - outside your a number, a rather high one at that based on staff turnover. Due to this imbalance some of the best practices I have seen are overlooked, especially by the teams operating in the USA, again a missed opportunity to improve and learn. In respect to life-balance, I throw caution to anyone who is thinking about joining the ranks or currently employed by Lab. There is more to life than working evenings and long weekends, do what ever else it is that you enjoy, spend time with your family, go out, see your friends don't fall into a false sense of this is 'just the norm', it's not! No one will thank you for it, no one will monitor it other than pointing blame at project management for burning budget (the irony is hilarious). To sum, Lab is a fully functional fire station. The normal operating procedure leans towards constant fire-fighting with cascading processes designed to camouflage other bad processes. A true horror story... With hand on heart I can honestly say I have never seen an organisation struggle with change so much....

- In 2015 ION Group acquired a majority ownership in the company and asserted a large amount of control over operations. Things have gone down hill rapidly since. See reviews of ION Trading, Triple Point Technology, Financial Software Systems, FFastFill, and Wall Street Systems (all other ION acquisitions) for whats in store. - Was a very high quality software shop, but since the ION changes, quality has dropped quickly and significantly over the past year. The goal is now just to get work out the door. Very little regard to quality at all. - We were paid only 30% of our 2015 bonuses, while the remaining is being witheld until later in the year, to be paid only if a specific number of off-shore employees are hired. Even the recruiting dept (whose responsibility it is to meet those goals) wasn't given a heads-up on this. - Executive team is not trustworthy. They tell half-trutths and lie often to woo and retain top talent, but can't follow through on anything (which is why the most talented people have left or are leaving). In the meantime, they can't figure out why their reviews are floundering (part of their onboarding process "requires" you to write a Glassdoor review, I guess in an attempt to inflate positive reviews while workers are still in that honeymoon phase). Quarterly Q&A meetings are supposed to be open to discussing the state of the company, but are really just a soapbox for management "assure" everyone that all is going just fine! The only real winners in this company are c-level execs and upper management, and they obviously aim to keep it that way. In the end, consider this a stepping stone at best. But with the market the way it is now there are so many companies that will treat you much better, especially in NYC, that it's hard to find a reason to bother.