Fair Isaac Reviews

Pros

They dont bother about employees.

Cons

Especially the QA org has a bad management at Bangalore with the inclusion of 2 new directors who are interested in playing more politics with the employees than their growth.They believe in a divide and rule policy more than the growth of the employees or the brand value of the company.They are just interested in their personal growth in the company.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve communication with Bangalore teams rather than relying only on the management's feedback. Attrition will increase more by doing this.

Pros

What I like about FICO
1. Variety of work that regularly presents interesting problems to solve
2. Mostly smart, motivated, friendly people
3. Flexible hours and home office options
4. People respect each other and trust each other, regardless of rank
5. Was once a cool company
6. Nice office space

Cons

1. Lack of high level leadership or direction
2. Middle level managers who speak in vague buzzwords and don’t contribute, but still get credit (although I’ve heard this exists at every company)
3. Promotion and salary uncorrelated with performance; more correlated with who likes you or who makes an arbitrary call about whether your work is worthwhile
4. Senseless lay-offs and re-orgs followed by hiring)
5. Lack of focus on research or real innovation
6. Sometimes exploits analyst level workers

Advice to Senior Management

Fund research and innovation. Concentrate on hiring great people with diverse skills and backgrounds, and keep them well-paid and engaged. Too much cost-cutting, re-orgs, redirection and lay-offs are making this company worse.

Pros

Good pay, solid benefits package, telecommute opportunities, autonomous work with low to no micro management

Cons

Flat earnings growth, change out of mid-upper management frequent, Top level goals slow to translate into actionable goals downward in organization, highly political environment with a destructive edge to it, quarterly RIFs fuel negative working relationships to survive, compensation bonus pools funded lightly, quotas and plan delivered late every year to sales organization

Advice to Senior Management

Due diligence on new ideas to understand how to make them actionable before mass rollout - e.g. Go Big was more marketing fluff with undocumented value estimates that wasn't easily replicated by field. Mechanisms need to be established to help sales force see how FICO fits with existing infrastructure versus rip / replace model solution selling of multiple systems to client as single sale.

Pros

Most people were great and the company had good intentions. Execs made big mistakes with senior level changes.

Cons

Execs created havoc when replacing VP's.

Advice to Senior Management

Work with your teams and listen to new ideas.

Pros

Flexible work schedule (although telecommuting has been limited for arbitrary reasons)
Reasonable salary
Good 401k
Opportunity to work on new and emerging technologies, gaining skills that are valuable elsewhere.

Cons

Constant in-fighting between business units
Top heavy - far too manager managers, not enough worker bees
IT organization disjointed with extremely low employee morale
Management consistently makes bad decisions without ever consulting the people who will be affected. Communication of these decisions is haphazard and poorly thought out.

Advice to Senior Management

Talent has been haemorrhaging since 2009. Constant re-orgs are not helping. Define a focus for the organization, and stick with it. Improve communication at all levels. Cull management. Listen to and value your employees.

Pros

Good work life balance. Nice people.

Cons

Work not challenging. Difficulty finding new, interesting projects after a while. Lack of training. Slow promotions. Company product is too niche.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more opportunities to young talent.

Pros

Recognized brand in financial services with a huge list of clients around the globe.
Knowledgeable and friendly employees (but a diminishing group)
Good place for young people starting their careers to gain experience

Cons

Incompetent senior management that is unable to motivate the troops, set a strategy or to communicate it.
Senior management has no appreciation for the people (tenure, experience, knowledge, performance reviews) and carries out frequent lay offs to meet the bottom line.
Frequent organization changes that do nothing to improve execution or communication, and decrease productivity during re-org adjustment periods
Short term focused company looking only at the next quarter, with no vision or strategy for the long term.
Don't believe telecommuting as a perk, there is increasing focus on going into the office
Healthcare benefits are worse every year.

Advice to Senior Management

Instead of laying off the experienced workers to meet numbers, get rid of the senior management team and start over.

Pros

Stable work....well sort of if you can dodge the freq rounds of company layoffs. Telecommute is huge perk!

Cons

Slow to adobt latest trends in software development and technology. Freq layoffs

Advice to Senior Management

Challenge your developers to learn the latest trends in software

Pros

Fico is a fun copany to work for.

Cons

Managment is disorganized at times and limited

Advice to Senior Management

Empower Employees

Pros

Good technology, good people, good clients

Cons

Sales offices are run by sales managers

Advice to Senior Management

Strategy needs to be followed by all