Going through difficult changes - Senior Software Developer JSI Telecom Employee Review

2.0
Jan 25, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

First off, don't believe half of these fluffy happy ratings. Management has specifically asked employees to post positive reviews on Glassdoor. I'm sure a number of these 5 star reviews were planted. I'm tired of seeing new employees instantly let down by the realities of working here. Also don't believe the interview process where they tell there are all kind of unique exciting challenges etc etc. As a software developer you will be mainly working on bugs and a predefined story backlog. You won't be designing or creating anything unique and exciting. - There are some really great talented people at JSI. - The time in Lieu policy is great. - RRSP contribution matching. - Relatively competitive salary for the Ottawa area. - You will rarely be asked to work over time. - There is job security, almost to a fault. Many JSI employees are 'lifers' and could never re-enter the job market at this point.

Cons

- Management has been asleep at the wheel for years now. - There is not a culture of quality, and it is reflected in the work. - Their version of agile leaves a lot to be desired. - Expect MONTHS of tie off sprints to beat the code into a somewhat stable state so it can be pushed out the door. - Next to zero formal design of software to be written. - Serious issues in the code base are ignored in favour of adding new bells and whistles. - Zero career growth if you're not interested in management. It's basically impossibly to care about what you're working on. Just punch the clock, and collect your paycheque. That's how most JSI employees deal with it.

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JSI Telecom Response
10y
Thank you for your feedback. JSI needs to continuously strive to do better, so I encourage all JSI employees to talk to their team, their manager and to me about how we can improve what we do. We also tell all JSI employees that if they love JSI they should pass that message on to the world and bring us their friend's resumes -- for example, we had a dozen referrals in the last month. You are absolutely right that we spend too much time fixing defects, and I believe improving this will make us more effective. The earlier we can catch defects, the more efficient our development process. Accordingly we are modifying our internal tools so that stories are developed and tested in a story branch with full automated testing before that check-in progresses to the trunk. And, we recently added code stewardship logic to ensure that a motivated expert will be involved in each code review. As you note, we do support senior developers who want to move to management positions, and we also have opportunities to become architects and product owners. However, if you want to remain in software development but are not feeling challenged in your current team I am also very happy to make a spot for you working in one of our many other technologies/areas. Whether it is big data, web applications, mobile development or analytics, I am confident we can provide a new challenge!. - Director, Software Engineering

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