FactSet Reviews

Pros

-laid back
-low salary compared to competitor (depends on the department. some departments are paid ok, but some departments are not)

Cons

-no clear and long term career path
-no fairness across departments (some departments are well-treated, while others are not)
-too ad hoc and no structure in place

Advice to Senior Management

-too much emphasis and investment on offshore teams. I would prefer if the management is upfront and transparent about the direction. It is pretty obvious that we want to cutback on the employeees onshore.

Pros

Good Work Culture, Enjoying while working at factset.

Cons

Low Compensation, facilities need to be improved...

Pros

- Great entry point in to software and financial industries
- Intelligent and ambitious colleagues
- Wide array of technologies to work on
- Technically competent management
- Career growth opportunities
- Good training programs for mid-career employees
- Potential to move between teams and other locations

Cons

- There is a pervasive absence of an innovative spirit
- Compensation is low relative to other employers of similar talent
- Engineering interests take a back seat to sales goals and the infrastructure suffers
- There is often a push to deploy features before they're well polished

Advice to Senior Management

Don't forget that the company is successful because of its software. If you don't push for innovation at all levels you will not continue to displace your competitors.

Pros

Good Infrastructure and snacks, refreshments.

Cons

Very demotivating environment. Delegation is very poor. No ethics followed by some of the Managers. Attrition level is very high.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve the leadership level..Because people do not leave companies, they leave managers.
Provide more learning opportunities for the employees also.

Pros

Freedom, flexibility and reasonably good prospects of climbing up the ladder and particularly for building your CV to some on within the industry

Cons

A lot of rubbish managers, and FactSet very often is either unwilling or unaware to tackle the issue.
They're happy to tackle incompetence further down the foodchain but get cold feet further up it.

Advice to Senior Management

Make compensation reviews a little bit more transparent - and putting quotas on performance compensation is really not very clever.

Pros

Benefits, work/life balance, work from home privileges (note: not all teams have this), very strong engineering culture, smart engineers and capable managers, relatively fair review system, tries to be client driven, strong onboarding plan (new hire training, mentors), innovation encouraged, company will support you resource-wise in "getting things done", relatively little bureaucracy due to PD / engineering division of labor, patience with new hires, excellent in-house managerial training, decent social atmosphere (you have to be here for a while to appreciate it).

Cons

Rigid promotion requirements hinder top performers from faster recognition (for some teams, not all), pay is average to below average for the financial software industry in NYC, in-house technology-oriented training not at the level of managerial training, an initiative needs to be developed to help PDs and engineers collaborate better (I'm serious about this), working in the financial software domain means you don't really understand the end-user (unless you are a banker or money manager), some teams have pager / on call duties, specialization means cross-team moves are less likely.

Advice to Senior Management

FactSet is the best place to work in the financial software industry, despite its shortcomings. I qualify this because the industry may not have the mass appeal as some others such as consumer-facing industries or social networking companies. Nothing you can do about that. Recommendations: make the promotion structure more fluid for high-performing engineers. Pay PDs more, they deserve it. You are not a mediocre company but you pay like one; raise your average pay to be in the top 10-15 percentile in the industry. You have a ton of free cash flow, make sure you do everything you can - not only pay, but also benefits, promotions, training, and compelling work - to keep your top performers motivated and challenged.

Pros

Culture, benefits, people are awesome. You work with your friends.

Cons

Norwalk location is not the best. Opportunities for personal/professional growth can be hard to come by.

Pros

BALANCE with work and life.

Cons

Need to expend their domain.

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing

Pros

Compensation is fair for most teams, bonus program is good.
Time off for personal exigencies
Escalations are not the way of life and heavens do not fall if you miss a deadline

Cons

Dictator rule at Hyderabad
Process adherence in processes is a distant cry
Favoritism, no uniform policies for all groups and levels
Promotions are not based on merit.
Performance management is an eyewash, another task to be completed and nothing more.
Very high employee turnover, no attention to that aspect by management

Advice to Senior Management

Some soul searching required in the way employees are treated. India and Hyderabad market is a ocean of opportunities and if FactSet continues to run the organisation the dictatorial way, doomsday is not far away.

Pros

the salary and benefits at FactSet are most likely the key factors of making it one of the best places to work at.

Cons

May get stuck with a boring project

Advice to Senior Management

Document your software (internal). There could be some standards set in place or a designated person to review and document software. This is especially important for internal software as this is heavily used to help run the company. Overall, I respect FactSet, its policies, and my current compensation.