Pros
Most people (with certain exceptions) are very approachable so the atmosphere is very relaxed and informal. The office space is very open which means it’s easier to ask somebody a question, but it also means more background noise. Plenty of socials with free food and self-organized (you might be able to expense it to Cority depending on your team) happy hours. Decent health benefits and perks. Free coffee, tea, and snacks in the kitchen
Cons
I have really mixed feelings about the company. Don’t get me wrong, there’s enough of good things there, but it seems like recently there’s been more and more problems coming up. After a whole team was laid off without a warning this summer, the atmosphere hasn’t been the same, and the development and support teams are in a constant state of stress. I cannot fathom the idea of firing 10+ people who were an essential part of the company. With no notice, they were just disconnected from the company system. And since this was unexpected, the company didn’t train others on how to carry out the simplest tasks to fill in the gaps. The easiest parts of debugging client issues that were so streamlined were broken, and the bug tickets were taking longer to get resolved than they used to. And I can’t blame the remaining developers; they never had to carry out these tasks before, and they weren’t given timely training before getting a pile of support tickets. And nobody addressed the fact that the rest of employees had to absorb the extra work without anything in return and as a result become overworked. Other than that, Cority is losing a lot of smart people. In some cases, it’s inevitable due to circumstances. But oftentimes, it’s because Cority underpays or presents no career growth opportunities. And while one department is getting perks of expensing their numerous team activities to the company, other teams get heavily underpaid and underappreciated. And I don’t see any fairness in that no matter how you look at this conundrum. I’m also confused by the management style in the company. And while I cannot speak of all managers, directors, etc in Cority, I can speak of the people that were managing my team and the teams I worked with. To start with, I’m thoroughly puzzled by how the hiring and firing decisions are made. Why people who don’t have a skill set and whose resume for a completely different position than what they’re applying for get hired is beyond me. And later on, these people tell others how to do their job instead of trying to work on their own weaknesses. Getting mixed signals and mixed directions from managers also doesn’t help in containing the stress. You cannot expect your employees to improve without giving constructive feedback. At the same time, constructive feedback from employees sometimes isn’t taken seriously so I guess communication is not of a big value. And again, there’s plenty of good stuff as well. There are a lot of great, smart people still working there (for better or worse) who approach their work with responsibility. However, when a lot of employees don’t want to be accountable for their actions, there’ll be no quality work and responsibility for the consequences. And while some people pick up the slack from the unaccountable people, at one point, this hardworking bunch will pack up and leave. Especially with the growing amount of politics (despite the CEO’s assurance of “no-politics environment") and the fact that you have to befriend and please certain people to get anywhere in the company.
