iSystems reviews about "management"

The main issue I have had working at iSystems have mostly been rectified in the last few yearsm but the massive growth and addition of several concurrent projects has led to some difficulty ensuring everyone is aware of progress for the various projects. This is something active being worked on, but there is still room for improvement.

We need to continue to work on our employer brand as well as improve our benefits to attract the right staff.

Nothing major, but the physical work space and bathrooms are very dated. Most work stations are not near any windows. Health insurance premiums are expensive for family plans, but very cheap for individuals. Fast growth sometimes mean organization / documentation / info sharing can be inconsistent.

Working at this company is not for people who can't stomach unprofessionalism, poorly executed software, or borderline bullying from your colleagues. You have to keep in mind that this is still a small, but growing company that hasn't shed of all its former ways. There is a small clique in middle management that spans the entire company which effectively acts as a firewall against communication and accountability. Software releases may be completely botched, requiring patching, but management will not be held accountable or even let word of it flow freely up the chain. Meanwhile, subordinates are made to scramble at the whims of very talented people that were once very successful in their roles, but now seemingly in over their heads and making it up as they go along. The company also doesn't use well established HR practices and will randomly promote people in the "in" clique or promote those in their favor without ever posting positions internally or waiting for the formal performance review process to play out. Monetary compensation is competitive, but total benefits offerings do not compare to those of similar size technology companies in the area.

The culture of the company is significantly lacking professionalism and general values which make it a difficult environment to work in. The leadership, management and executives, lack a firm understanding of treating employees well and valuing the work that employees do each day. Promotions are offered to those "in the club", think high school clique. Poor behavior towards employees by managers is tolerated and overlooked regularly. The technology and resources are fairly antiquated and getting any supplies in order to do your job is an undertaking in itself.

The amount of technical debt on their books is only outdone by the sunk costs related to their acquisition of products, making it more of a clean up on aisle six job for technical talent, and not enough actual engineering of solutions for problems. Little of the code is written by anyone in the company and even less is documented. This is all further complicated by ineffective QA management where any small change might result in disaster, making teams too cautious to fix the most obvious issues. The success of the software more greatly reflects the performance by outside contractors, which outnumber the internal staff, making it all frustrating to watch, since this will greatly influence internal job performance scores.

Management walked a line between being oblivious to what their team was doing and lying to protect themselves from the inevitable fallout, benefits left a lot to be desired (health insurance was average, and found it cheaper to skip dental insurance and pay for cleanings out of pocket)