After 1 year - Support Edge Hosting Employee Review

Huge pros are the colleagues, advancement opportunities, environment, availability of training/certifications, company's commitment to your development, vested 401k, healthcare benefits. It's a mid-size company for the moment, so of course there's not advancement opportunities for every single employee, but half of the lower level staff that comes in and sticks around for more than a certain amount of time seems to have moved up into the rest of the company once they've finished certifications/engineer-level training. Management style varies by which team you're on; Sales, Support, and Development seem to all be straightforward managers that I'd happily work under. I wouldn't consider their styles micromanagement, although there are definitely high expectations set for any employee coming in. They're usually pretty well defined which is nice (generally no sudden "why didn't you do this thing you don't know about?!" meetings). Mandatory training and advancement programs starting to roll out earlier this year. Those that have them in place are given time to work on advancement during their business day, which is rare. For colleagues, you're working with a very large group of engineers (90% or more?). That means there's access to them as resources, but it also necessitates a willingness to learn (or contribute) rather than focusing on past achievements. It's a huge asset if you take advantage of it, whether to further educate yourself or to collaborate. I consistently see others recognized for hard work and going above and beyond the expectations set. The company itself has begun changing direction recently to keep up with market trends--should continue to have opportunities for employees moving forward as initiatives pick up speed. CEO and management seems to genuinely care about both employees and clients, which makes for a less stressful environment than others where I've worked (even with the innate stress of working for this kind of company). PTO allowance is great!

Stress level (clients are usually using services as mission critical), organization for cross departmental projects (has improved greatly since I've been here with recent management hires, would like to see it continue in this direction). On-boarding can be a little hectic with everything going on and some people might get lost in it (might also naturally weed out those who aren't cut out for the pace, though, so grain of salt there). Taking PTO is a little limited (mostly self inflicted) due to need for staff to not disappear to Europe for two weeks in a row. This is more due to the nature of IT rather than this company, though, I've had the same "problem" elsewhere.

Friendly workplace. I did learn quite a bit while I was there. Coworkers and management are happy to share their knowledge and experience. I actually like the CEO on a personal level. I do respect his passion and desire to deliver a great product to his customers. He did teach me a few things that I have carried with me in my present position.

I was fed a script to memorize verbatim. I was not allowed to develop my own thoughts or style. There were weekly sessions where I would present the CEO's script back to him. My perception was that the CEO was afraid to let go duties that he once performed himself. The small details seemed to be of the most importance. I believe that this type of management both hinders personal growth and the overall growth of the company. Much like the last reviewer, I too felt stupid and deflated after leaving the CEO's office. Another thing that seemed troubling is that there was very little visible growth from a sales perspective. The new business acquisition of any substantial size seemed to be flat-lined. At the same rate there was a lot of money spent on both new hires and datacenter infrastructure upgrades. It was puzzling. My manager was entirely unhelpful. I don't know what his function was, other than to smile and enthusiastically say hello.