A Cautionary Tale for Potential Employees and Business Partners - Project Manager ShopDev Employee Review

Was able to learn fast Great experience

Sometimes I had nothing to work on and just felt bad but no real problems!

✅Good place for absolute freshers to get basic hands-on project exposure.✅ ✅Opportunity to learn how service-based IT businesses function in Pakistan.✅ ✅Some good team members at the lower and middle levels (though often demotivated by upper management).✅

❌Salaries are below market average and stagnant.❌ ❌Increments are not on time and months late and below market.❌ ❌No structured career growth or learning development.❌ ❌Unethical management practices, especially regarding employee layoffs and pending payments.❌ ❌Lack of project stability; risk of sudden layoffs without financial compensation.❌ ❌Toxic blame culture instead of transparent communication.❌ ❌Poor client retention and no meaningful brand reputation internationally.❌ ❌ShopDev hires employees but treats them as freelancers by paying through their foreign entity rather than through their Pakistani payroll. While this setup allows tax rebates (originally meant for freelancers) and saves ShopDev tax payments, it denies employees access to key employment rights such as EOBI (Employees Old-Age Benefits Institution) and the ability to challenge unfair dismissals under Pakistan's labor or wage courts. This leaves employees financially and legally vulnerable, without the protections standard employees typically enjoy.❌ 📢Review📢: 📢I had the opportunity to closely observe the inner workings of ShopDev over time. Unfortunately, my experience — like that of many others — exposed a troubling pattern in the company's practices.📢 📢ShopDev tends to offer salaries that are significantly below market standards. More critically, due to the company's stagnant growth and unethical business practices, whenever a client ends their partnership with ShopDev (often due to dissatisfaction or discovering corrupt practices), the company is unable to sustain the salaries of employees tied to those projects. Instead of responsibly managing transitions, ShopDev simply lays off employees without proper financial closure.📢 📢A particularly shameful case involved a pioneering employee — one of the very early members of ShopDev — who was promised final dues in writing at the time of layoff but never received them. When he pursued his rightful arrears through legal means, ShopDev resorted to false accusations of misconduct against him, despite having issued him experience letters, appreciation letters, and multiple salary increments, all of which clearly reflected his strong performance.📢 📢This employee later proved ShopDev wrong in court and further validated his professional credibility by securing a prestigious Director-level position in a government department — an offer that underscored his competence and integrity. Interestingly, this was not his first government job offer; he had turned down previous opportunities out of loyalty to ShopDev.📢 📢Rather than acknowledging their failures, ShopDev falsely claimed that the employee was retaliating over the layoff, despite the court finding ShopDev’s accusations baseless. This entire saga revealed a culture of blame-shifting, dishonesty, and poor employee treatment at ShopDev.📢