Progress Reviews

Pros

Having been in Software Inside Sales and Account Management over 25 years, I can honestly say Progress is the best company for which I have ever worked. The leadership and employees are smart, focused on the right things (taking care of customers, treating everyone with respect, supporting the communities where Progress has offices, personable, thoughtful and appreciative).

Cons

For a time there was a tendency for a handful of managers to insist that their direct reports made it into the office. With Covid, however, this is no longer the case (and will not be the case) for employees that have roles where collaboration is most-beneficial.

Pros

So much to list here. The people are #1, from the CEO on down everyone is really great. Loaded with talent. The work here is challenging as well. I have a lot of work to do with non stop projects and what is good is that these projects really tend to stretch me, which means I am constantly learning new skills and getting better. At times it can feel like there is too much work but honestly I love it and I love the intensity. Overall the benefits here are good - competitive with other companies. They are not the best you'll find anywhere, but they are very good benefits. Also, over and over the senior leadership at Progress has demonstrated that they care about the people. There is a lot of flexibility here. Finally, while this is a company that has been around a while, they keep their products and technologies on the cutting edge.

Cons

While their products are cutting edge, some of the internal infrastructure is not. This is not a big deal but at times it is a pain dealing with something older, like the phone system or getting a new cutting edge laptop to work on. There are career opportunities at Progress but its not always easy. For example, some teams have one function like Support around the world, but Development and QE local to one country. If your goal was to move to another function not in your country your options are limited.

Pros

The individual products within the Progress portfolio are mostly solid technologies and well regarded within their specific verticals (Database Connectivity, Front End Dev Tools, App Dev, Monitoring, mBaaS, etc) and the company continues to invest in bringing them forward. Most of the execs were engineers before they went into management so the company has an Engineering focus. The company takes a long term view of their business relationships and has loyal customers who are (in general) happy with the relationship.

Cons

Company is run very cheaply - not much in the way of employee perks. Salaries are broadly in line with the market, if slightly lower, however salary is really all you should expect - there is a subsidized share scheme but the share price hasn't exactly rocketed up in the past few years so it really isn't really worth participating in. So unless you're an exec and get lots of options, overall compensation compares poorly to other companies.

Pros

decent salaries and good benefits. Globally diverse workforce. They have been around a long time, so will probably continue to be a stable place to work (as long as you aren't laid off during an acquisition).

Cons

focus is on maintaining ARR for existing products, not on building new things or innovation. heavy focus on cheaper labor, at the cost of letting great talent go. Haven't the faintest clue how to work effectively in a remote environment. The global workforce means you're likely to work all kinds of crazy hours instead of focusing on asynchronous communication. The tooling available to employees is pretty terrible - definitely not best of breed. Company tech, tooling, and mindset seem stuck 10-15 years in the past.