Was a good ride - Android Developer Secure Group Employee Review

very interesting product and really technically challenging

lack of proper design team financial issues

Interview process is not too complicated, but they ask you to go to the office to do a test which can be done online. Most colleagues are cool. Semi-interesting project that has some potential but with the current management it will not go further than it is now. That's it, I can't even state 1 solid pro...

Not sure that Secure Group will hire anymore people but still, here goes my experience with them. I went on 5 interviews with other companies while working for Secure Group. All known and big IT companies. NONE of them asked me about Secure Group and when I tried to speak about the company I was cut off on ALL 5 OF THEM. I was only asked about my previous employers. Every single one of the 5 companies I went to told me they know of Secure Group and didn't want to hear anything more about it... This is the reputation the company has... I was afraid that I have done more bad than good by posting them on my CV... SUMMARY: The office space is OK, salary is OK but any place gives the same money today, there are no benefits, management fails in every possible way which is confirmed by the huge amount of people leaving only days after joining, you are treated as if you are their enemy or you are trying to steal something at every given moment. The whole company is about 15 people currently and declining. On multiple occasions the manager has allowed himself to speak poorly against previous employees (every employee that left since I am there has been the target of ill-speech). Management lies a lot and are never transparent about anything. WORKSPACE: You work on old desktop PC's with Linux which is fine if you don't want to work from home. The PC's are in horrendous condition. If something breaks you have to fix it yourself and you are just told "well here is an old computer you can take it apart and take whatever you need and fix it yourself". At least that's what I had to do. BENEFITS: You only get benefits after the 6th month. I worked there for a year and I never saw my additional health insurance. In July I asked them about the insurance card and they told me that they can't issue such card in the last quarter of the year. After a few absurd backs and forths I gave up. You get 1.67 or whatever it was days paid leave per month and if you want to use paid leave before you have "generated" enough days you have to use UNPAID leave. I have 12 years of professional experience and I had NEVER taken an unpaid leave until I worked for Secure Group. MANAGEMENT: Communication is disrespectfully bad. They don't inform anyone about anything. When they do decide to say something it is only said to 1 person in private and it is expected that this person will share the information with the whole team (it happened with me). Every single sentence that I have heard from management has been a lie. Empty promises are their forte. Unfortunately I am not exaggerating even a bit. PERSONAL STORIES: On day 1 I was told that soon we will get laptops, soon we will be moving to a new office, we will be expanding the team, I will receive X amount of money when I turn 1 year in the company (and if I'm not doing well they will help me and make sure I am good enough to get the said raise on the 1 year mark). None of that happened. All of the above were promised and announced to me multiple times by the manager. When I requested a raise as the starting payment was way below average I was given a task which I accepted as my "trial before the raise", which is fine. After I completed the task I was not given any feedback and when I requested it I was told I am not getting the promised raise and the reason was that I wasn't doing as good as someone else in the company. No constructive feedback was provided to me about the task or anything and the promised "help" was also not there. I was actually told that if I have a higher offer somewhere else they will let me go instantly. Somehow this was meant to be a compliment to me... One of the worst things at this company is that you as their employee are seen as an enemy. They try with their whole power to show you that they are the bosses and they will tell you how things will go. If you dare to oppose them in any way they start with the dirty tricks to make your life harder - rejecting sick leaves, rejecting paid/unpaid leave, rejecting home office, rejecting to assist you in any way, forcing you to explain why you were 10-20 minutes late and many, many more. No reason whatsoever, just to show you who's boss. Here is a short example (I have many more but this is turning out to be too long anyway): The UNPAID leave - it was approved a couple of months before the vacation date, a few weeks before that date I was sick and took a 3 day sick leave (the only sick leave I took for the whole year there). When I came back my ALREADY APPROVED UNPAID vacation was cancelled. When I asked what happened I was told that since I have not passed the 6 month mark I can't take UNPAID leave.