Good to get your feet wet, but don't stay too long - Anonymous employee Orchard Software Employee Review

Pay is not great for the vast majority of positions. No incentive to exceed expectations. Little to no opportunity for advancement. Bleeding talent leads to low job satisfaction and lack of competence. Where to start. I still have fond memories of this company, but I left because the cons finally overcame my inertia. The pay is crap, honestly. It is well below industry average for almost every position I've checked on. Also, pay can vary widely from one person to the next in the same position. Because they hire from within and move people from one job to the next, they often keep people at the same compensation level. There can be pay discrepancies of tens of thousands of dollars. In some cases, this results in people getting paid literally half what they should be getting even if they're great at their job. On that note, there are no bonuses and performance-based raises are basically non-existent. The 10th percentile performer will get the exact same raise as the 80th percentile performer, and might actually be getting paid less overall. The only way to really advance your career is to get a new position within the company or leave. The few people who have made significant advances did so by jumping into a newly created position and eventually becoming manager by default. Actual promotions are few and far between - they just say "You were level 1 X, now you're a level 2 X. You have the same job, but we're going to pay you a bit more." And when I say a bit, it's generally an insubstantial raise compared to what you should be getting. Eventually, the best and brightest realize that the skills they've fostered in the position are worth an absurd amount more money than they're actually being compensated for and go elsewhere. Including myself and others, people leave and are easily able to get positions that pay anywhere from 50-100% more for the exact same and sometimes even an easier job. It's hard to say too much about management because it's like a black box. The rank and file, and even low- to mid-level management, are largely kept out of any sort of strategic planning. Sometimes we get told about something, we advise that it is a horrible idea and that we should either not do it or do it another way, they say they'll "take it into consideration," and then it's implemented in the way that was warned against to consistently poor results. Sometimes we'll be excited about what we're told and want to help, and are told that they'll come talk to us when they're ready and nothing would ever come of it. I'll say that they do run a good hype-game, though.