Marfeel Reviews

Pros

The two main attractions of Marfeel are its great environment and a magnificent codebase. It's really hard to imagine a more permissive and friendly working environment than Marfeel's. Not that it's completely laid back — this company is still in an initial growing stage and there is always work to do, but I am extending that at the Cons section. Nevertheless, a young environment — brilliant minds mostly in their... 20s or early 30s — a ping pong and foosball tables, beer tap, yoga lessons, a home-like feeling and the freedom to be yourself at any time, are some goddamn good reasons to work there. Altogether with this, the codebase at Marfeel is a goldmine. We are just talking about plain Java and Javascript, nothing uncanny, but in a sense that's what actually makes it impressive. Especially at the front-end. I've always been a back-end boy, but honestly that front-end architecture is so much worth working with. And pretty much the same applies for the back-end. All so beautifully well thought and structured. The level of good work that's been applied to that code is simply sublime — and not to be surprised with the great developers in that office.

Cons

Let's not forget about the negative aspects of the company. As we know, it's not gold all that glitters. There's two main low points at Marfeel: the lack of opportunities and the human resources relationship. Why is there a lack of opportunities? It's a web dev company with all its back-end and front-end pretty much already crafted — there's little to start anew. And all the little projects that spring up either... at the front-end or at the back-end, they are sufficiently accomplished by the people in the correspondent teams. They might add one or two new developers a year to those teams, but eh. If you get in the company as a support developer — which is the main hiring need for the company, as the number of clients increases, altogether with the complexity of having to adapt the company's solution to their needs —, it's highly probable that's where you'll stay for a while, cause that's where they need the main workforce. And, trust me, it's usually a hectic, frustrating, low knowledge-providing and dead-end-full world. And well, on top of that, but this is strictly a personal opinion, the new projects being started are not that attractive — and the lack of product management feeling in the company doesn't seem to help change that. There's some cool stuff going on in one of the teams with some machine learning techniques, but of course there's not really a need for many more data analysts. [This was my first business-related job, so maybe what I complain of in here is something common. If it is like that, I'm off the business world!] So, what's wrong with human resources? Actually, you can't technically say there's something wrong with the HR team — they are all magnificent people doing a great job. The problem is how you relate with the company, of course, through HR and your manager in between. It's an awful communication. By this I mean is strictly a reactive communication. You have to push and push the company for them to listen, and even then, they probably won't. Maybe cause there's actually no feasible answer — related with what I said before, how are they going to give you more opportunities if there are not, or if they seriously need you where you are right now. I can count some people that left the company — and that's already alarming — for not being properly listened. Listened? But you should not even have to talk. A company should always notice when someone is not comfortable working and provide them solutions proactively. Marfeel doesn't. They'll see you die and they'll think it's part of the flow of things. It's alright, maybe it works for them. They don't keep tabs on you. On the paper, yeah, but not in reality. They will just tend to be a little sketchy on every side of employee caring responsibilities. As a personal experience, at my yearly appraisal, I got told that my salary increase should be higher, but it was just too early to do it. Some more months made sense, since I just started to be really productive some two months ago. I agreed. We all agreed. It made sense. I will just get another increase before everyone else's. Alright. Half a year later I heard absolutely nothing about it. It pretty much seemed like they would just increase my salary to what it should've been some months ago, slightly before the general appraisals, and then neglect mine. Way to save barely a thousand euros in a few months — not such a discount for a company that big. Seriously, I'm the least money-looking person, I could volunteer for my whole life, but I do notice gimmicks and I'm not comfortable with them. On top of that, I told them and they understood I needed more challenges in my coding. Like I said, they won't proactively lift a finger to help you on that. You are doing a very important support work and they are okay with you staying there. "You need to earn important developments", my manager said. Alright. Didn't hear anything about that as well in the six upcoming months. A 4 year CS Bachelor's, one year in your company. Do I still have to earn those challenges? — no, there are no such challenges and you do a very important job at support while we underpay you.

Pros

- Very nice office - Friendly and skilled colleagues - Opportunities for growth and learning

Cons

- The workflow is poorly managed, leading to employees frustration - HR department focus is on micromanaging instead of really helping employees express their full potential

Advice to Management

Review the HR performance, asking employees for anonymous feedback.

Pros

- Great office - Continuous Delivery - Team is diverse - There are people with lots of knowledge

Cons

- Praise about flat organisation/management but in reality there's no flat hierarchy - Poor employee retention, seems like it is the typical big company that people are just numbers. - Does not engage with the community - Roadmap doesn't promote innovation and creativity - Collaboration across departments needs to be improved - Nonexistent flexible working hours - Stupid job titles - Doesn't invest in career... path (in fact there's no career path) - Company culture is fear of loosing your job.

Advice to Management

Please, review the culture and the HR department!

Pros

* Team is diverse * You can find some good qualified developers * Start to finish ownership * Continuous Delivery * Eats lunch together * Friends outside work * Has good beer * Thougthful Office layout * Self-funded company * Technical founders * Starting to adopt remote work as an option (for old employees)

Cons

* Does not engage with the community * Roadmap doesn't promote innovation and creativity * Collaboration across departments needs to be improved * Open communication with room for improvement * Not flat organization * Not team oriented * There are some parts of code base outdated or requiring a refactor * Doesn't promote pair programming * Needs to improve open source contribution * Does not use... cutting-edge technhologies (but plans to do it) * Improvable use of agile methodologies * Low rate of internal mobility * Not good for Junior Devs * Improvable internship program * Low employee retention * Improvable work/life balance * Needs to improve commitment to personal growth * Unsafe environment to fail * None flexible work arrangements * None Light meetings depending on the position * Customer comes first over engineering, product and design * Data driven but with room of improvement * Rapidly growing teams but at any cost (low profiles,

Pros

- Great environment and people - Management team listen to feedback - Great place to grow and opportunities given - People are friends outside the office - Good coding principles - Some coding gurus inside the company

Cons

- Communication between teams is hard - Clients and revenue comes first, before team members and developer experience - Inexperienced managers - Unjustified pressure - Not good for juniors

Pros

- great community - respectful colleagues - good pay

Cons

- can be hostile with problems - off work labor at times

Pros

-> Great team -> Lots of growth for the company and for projects to happen

Cons

-> Negative review approach on -> Autonomy isn't much given to the team and doesn't let the ideas grow

Pros

Fast-growing start up. ambience, Barcelona

Cons

Disorder. communication, lack of process

Advice to Management

Improve the communication between sales and tech