Pros
Great teammates. Free drinks. Pool table, salaries are a little bit above average.
Cons
Before you think this is a disgruntled ex-employee review, please look at the other reviews - notice how they are either 1 star with very specific complains or 5 stars with very generic praises (these reviews are created by new joiners as part of their on boarding). If you take the blue pill, all will be good - Centralway is working on an exciting app on an exciting market and the app is featured on tv advertisements in Germany, salaries are great, all is agile, you are supplied with a latest generation mac book pro with an impressive apple monitor, management is young, vibrant and dynamic, and the CEO has a long experience with investments throughout Europe. What if you take the red pill ? Centralway has been working on the same app for the last 2 years, reviews for that app are extremely negative (and the positive ones seem almost as fake as the positive ones on Glassdoor), employee turnover is through the roof (in less than 2 years more employees have left or have been kicked out of Centralway than currently work there!), office looks like an apple store and comfort and ergonomics are extremely low in priority as it is much more important to have a maniac clean desk policy so that investors are shown how cleanly everything is done at Centralway. Changes in strategy and orientation are commonplace and 180 degree changes happen almost every week (even though all changes are cosmetic and never deal with any of the real issues). Company has lost/kicked out the CTO and all founders of their main app, Numbrs. There is still no clear definition of how the company will monetise Numbrs, or what Centralway really intends to do with the user's banking data. Obsession with processes and permanent reporting (while pretending to follow Agile methodologies) are a clear sign of management mistrust in the engineering teams and on Centralway employees in general. Middle management is young, inexperienced and has no authority. The CEO's previous investments are hard to track and there is no clarity about how Centralway is financed. There is no overtime payment and employees are pushed to work well above the 42 hours. Career plans and stock options are promised regularly but never see the light of day. Company has a "department" to do online research of new joiners as well as to check on employees that have left, so if you already applied you have been checked not just by human resources but also by a "professional" stalker. Every Friday Centralway has a nice motivational event where employees are shown how well Numbrs and Centralway are doing - attendance is mandatory so that the people can't escape the distortion field. Before deciding to join or invest, please do check other reviews on Glassdoor and equivalent sites. Read the articles on Swiss newspapers about the CEO. If you love internal politics, paranoid secrecy, megalomania and being micromanaged this might be the place for you! Choose wisely which pill to take.
