Pros
Joining this relatively unheard of outfit gives great exposure to different disciplines: If you’re a campaign manager you get to work closely with analysts and present directly to clients. If you’re in solutions you get to use cloud hosted infrastructure to setup ML workflows or analytical processes. If you’re in facilities you get to plan events and receive guests. If you’re in sales you get to dine out on the company card and trip to Bangalore (not the restaurant). Where MiQ has been able to relocate people voluntarily moving west (Bangalore > London > US/Canada), there has been pressure from the business on employees recently to up-anchor and move continent which has left the bitter taste of enforced career counselling in peoples' mouths. There's been a few contract workers recently and I'm not sure that I even liked their work...nor their poor efforts to integrate. MiQ offices generally maintain vibrant facilities, good extras/events and a great social vibe, once you appreciate the front of house vs back of house vs HR+Fin division into cliques. The London office is very friendly. The NYC office is fast-paced yet less welcoming. The Hamburg office is jovial. Issues about inclusivity and diversity have been made known to me. MiQ is a great place to learn because the guy you need is just a slack chat away and they want to help. There’s a scheme called the future leaders program which seems strange in a founded-owned-run ltd co. But it’s really just an outlet for teacher’ pets (they are always in sales) to feel more important about themselves.
Cons
MiQ hires young; if you are over 27 then you are bringing the average up. A problem with tending to hire youngsters is that there are very few local experts. There’s a large pay gap between lay people and management which would be acceptable if there weren’t such a huge disparity between skill/knowledge and salary. One colleague gave MiQ 6 months to fix their low wage. MiQ did nothing. Colleague bailed. Their next job gave them an immediate 72% increase in pay. MiQ is fast paced; there are so many great ideas being born, living and dying. The answer to “can we...” questions is rarely “no” which is a great mindset to have but this has also recently been the company’s downfall. In the 10 months following an investment from ECI Partners, there was a brand and product realignment. MiQ was having difficulty establishing and selling its Analytics suite products which are untested, bespoke and developed without LoI. During this time the analytics arm lost 3 key accounts whilst still hiring on momentum. Management preached about 'sustainable growth' so after growing 40% annually for 8 years it was about time that they started pruning the tree. There then followed a few redundancies. Team leaders were asked to name weak links in their teams and personal relationships were assessed for reasons to fire. 'Unsatisfactory Performance' was the term used in these dismissals although no review periods were offered. They also fired a girl on the day that she found out that she was pregnant which is pretty unfortunate but just summarises MiQ's monstrous approach to the treatment of its employees. All this came 2 months after an internal crack down on employee recognition and work satisfaction in the Bangalore office following a barrage of negative feedback on glassdoor. MiQ calls itself a 'people-based' business which in itself is meaningless; the KKK was people-based too.