Pros
1) If you are right out of college, this is a great place to start. 2) Small company so you will get a chance to know everybody. 3) You get an opportunity to work with a lot of start up companies from the bay area. 4) Learning from cross functional teams. Accounting, Tax, Operations, HR. 5) Depending on your manager you can also try to work for a different department to increase your skills and abilities. 6) Yearly offsite meetings, holiday parties, summer events, office contests ( baking, Halloween, ugly sweater, March madness etc). 7) Friday lunches. 8) Gym available for use in the office building. 9) Flexible work hours. As long as you meet 40 hrs a week. 10) Cash bonuses. 11) Yearly pay raises depending on performance. 12) Office snacks and drinks. 13) Friendly staff. 14) Open concept office (could be a pro or con for some) 15) Benefits - PTO, employer covered 100% Medical for employee, Dental, Retirement account and employer matching program, HSA and so on.
Cons
1) High employee turnover - It turns out to be a joke among the staff sometimes on how many employees come and leave this company. Clearly showing a need for change that the management fails to understand. 2) On boarding failure - a lot of new employees feel overwhelmed. There is no proper on boarding process which speaks about the mission of the company, expectations, welcomes the employee in the right way and makes them feel valued. It just feels like they get thrown on the deep end and this is why a lot of people end up leaving within 6 months of being there. 3) Lack of processes - there is no proper and clear processes and protocols. This creates a lot of confusion and frustration. (Too many things to explain here) 4) Lack of awareness in new technology and training - Sagent still uses a lot of the older technology for work. Needs to step up and train their staff on doing things more efficiently with newer and better technology, software programs and providing more training and workshops. IT support is remote. Answer for everything will be REBOOT. Sometimes we end up spending hours on the phone fixing the problem or youtubing the issue and fixing it ourselves 5) Long work hours - Depending on which department you will be working for long hours can be one of the cons. 6) Lack of communication - it is an open office concept but you will barely see the President or Mangers come and talk with the staff. Only when you bring that open office concept and use it together with open communication then the employees feel comfortable to bring new ideas to the table and only then they feel like they are a valued part of the company. 7) Performance reviews - there are two performance reviews a year and thats it. There is no weekly 1:1. This creates a big communication void between the staff and managers. 8) All talk no action - there are a lot of things the management talks about in terms of bringing change for the better. But everyone gets tied up with other things and gets busy and it becomes only talk no action.