Pros

Note: This review concerns the Engineering (product) division. Professional Services, which has experienced the most growth of late, is likely an entirely different experience.

- Interesting, complex product, with some non-trivial engineering problems for those who value them
- A close-knit community in the engineering division: people really do have lunches together, and do a lot of things outside of work. Friendly.
- A lot of veterans who have been in the company 10-15 years
- Most/all managers in Engineering had been engineers themselves
- The product reached a certain maturity point circa 2007 and started selling like hotcakes. You can see that in the company growth

Cons

- If you come in as a junior engineer, growth will be slow. It will probably take a few years to become Senior Software Engineer, and a few more for Manager.
- No interaction with clients
- The usual problems that exist in most software shops (e.g. late releases, scrambling to put in features, bugs slipping through) also exist here
- Not enough interaction between product engineers and Professional Services consultants or Sales. Senior Management is adequate, but not stellar.

Advice to Senior Management

Remove walls between divisions. Instill a more effective cross-company communication framework (beyond the obligatory internal calls).

Pros

1. The product is very, very interesting and feature rich. It is consistently recgonised as the best-in-class for what it can deliver.
2. The people I interacted with - both in professional services and in R & D were some of the smartest people I ever worked with. They cared about the product and tried to deliver the best they can.

Cons

1. Some of the newer versions of the product are released pre-maturely for purely marketing reasons. The features are not tested thoroughly and the customers are expected to beta-test.
2. The sales representatives over-sell and over-simplify the product causing major headaches to the Professional services staff that actually have to implement the project.
3. The professional services staff is not treated with respect that they deserve. Work-life balance is non-existent
4. You have to do an equivalent of a thesis on Pega (on your own time) to get promoted.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Treat professional services as a valuable part of the company.
2. Do not say that you value your employees' professional and personal growth but then make them jump through hoops in order to make any headway
3. Improve your resource allocation strategy

Pros

The pay is decent. The hours are OK

Cons

The company has little regard for its employees in the Professional Services department. They are treated as interchangable machine parts with little regard to matching geographic location with project location. You may live 10 miles from a site with 3 people flying in from Canada each week.

Advice to Senior Management

Produce a product which does what you promise it is going to do

Pros

The core product is very, very interesting. There is a ton of potential for what it can become. The basic architectural approach has always been way ahead of its time. There are many long-time employees who care deeply about the success of the company and it doesn't feel like just another "let's get rich" moon shot. And people are very civil to one another.

Cons

It has always been technology driven and lacked the ability or interest in really marketing its product. There is chronic problem of under-developing and over-selling products as the R&D folks move on to the next project prematurely. Worse, there can be an arrogance when confronted with this problem. The response is more "you just don't get it" than "maybe we should listen."

Advice to Senior Management

The CEO needs to know his limitations and empower others to take the company places where he cannot.

Pros

pegasystems is a leader in a hot market - BPM - Business Process Management. While the economy is fairly soft in most industries and other tech, Pegasystems and the market is booming.

Cons

It is a little chaotic as the company grows so fast.
There is a good learning curve to get productive with Smart BPM Suite but expectations are for you to be productive immediately.

Advice to Senior Management

More emphasis on people loving to work at Pegasystems and not be too overworked as it is becoming easier to get jobs with other BPM companies