Spektrix Reviews

Cons

They take advantage of the fact that most people entering the business come from the arts industry and don't realize how much they should be compensated for their work in the tech sector. They rely on this and disguise it as parity to keep costs low and justify not giving new joiners an industry competitive (or even standard) salary in order to keep compensation "fair" amongst team members. Part of the low compensation is also that they serve non-profits and want to keep costs accessible which is lovely but doesn't pay the bills for the people who actually do the work. Benefits are very bare bones. Usually if your comp is low you can at least expect a robust benefits plan.

Cons

The leadership is clueless and create more issues than they solve. The software itself barely works, leading the severely underpaid employees taking the brunt of the work while leadership, of who look out for each other more than they look out for their employees (particularly in client services and support) make things more difficult with counterintuitive best-practices and expectations for their exhausted employees. People are actively looking for a way out of here and the Company's future vision is bleak. The company also regularly avoids acknowledging its poor benefits despite their people reviews.

Cons

Very early on, Spektrix underestimated the amount of work it would take to make inroads in North America, leading to broken promises and longstanding disgruntlement among early adopters. The company has now overcorrected and communicates nearly nothing to clients about product strategy or roadmap. With that said, things were clipping along more or less fine until the beginning of 2020. The pandemic was a challenge for most companies, and Spektrix was particularly exposed to risk due to servicing a sector that became almost entirely non-operational during the pandemic. The company survived the pandemic; the things that made it such a special place to work did not. A few examples: - Senior management failed to develop any cohesive strategy to support its employees while working from home at any point during the pandemic. - Almost all product development came to a complete standstill, putting an already behind-track roadmap even more so. - Diversity and inclusion only became a concern for management after George Floyd's murder. Efforts to diversify the company have ranged from ineffectively tone-deaf at best to actively offensive at worst. - Feedback became a weapon for managers. Expressing concerns that don't align with the consensus of senior management can, and will, result in retaliatory action. Due in part to seemingly non-existent HR, management is free to exercise judgment however they see fit, even if it's not actually what's best for the company. More broadly, senior management takes a deeply bureaucratic, apparently feckless approach to any and all decision-making. Because everything needs to go through them, getting anything to move at any level of the business is a challenge. Getting concrete financial or logistical resource to make things happen was already challenging before the pandemic; now, it's basically impossible. Compared to small nonprofit theatres in New York, where many hires have historically come from, Spektrix's pay and benefit package is reasonably fair. Compared to the industry it purportedly competes in--bundled Software as a Service--the compensation is laughable. Rather than being up front about this, the company repeatedly claims that benchmarks have indicated that the compensation offering is competitive. (What benchmarks, you may ask? Good question; nobody has ever seen them!) This kind of completely unnecessary spin is commonplace at Spektrix. All of these factors combined have led to an extreme exodus of long-standing employees at all levels of the business - some by choice, some not. As the company hemorrhages employees and institutional knowledge, the live entertainment industry that the company services continues ramping back up, leaving the remaining staff even further under-resourced and overworked. Morale is at an all-time low and mental breakdowns are common; everyone seems to be eyeing the exits. It's a shame, because for a long time I believed in what Spektrix was trying to do and how we were trying to do it. But everyone has a breaking point, and this seems to be the year that broke everyone. It didn't have to be this way.

Cons

- Pay is not competitive. All of their competitors will pay more for the same position. If you broaden beyond that to include the software tech industry in general, average salaries are almost HALF of what the market will offer elsewhere at a similar sized company. - The office culture is very gossip-y and there is a lot of politics. Most team members are constantly worrying about what another department is doing saying and preemptively sabotaging them to stay ahead with management. - Senior management sees employees as pawns rather than collaborators. You’ll be encouraged to speak up when something is wrong, but when you do you’ll be treated as an issue for not falling in line. Over time this has led more and more people to either stop speaking up for fear of retribution or for them to leave the company after 2 years (2 years is the magic number for leaving at Spektrix). - This is a UK company and always will be that first and foremost. Senior management in the main office will not sincerely solicit or action feedback from New York. There’s a clear pattern of making the attempt by senior management, but each time there is no actionable outcome from that feedback, and then New York employees are considered trouble makers for expressing input relevant to their market.

Cons

- Demanding clients - Crowded industry - “Start up” Growing Pains The company tries to operate in an agile way - so change is constant. Initiatives, priorities and goals can change quickly - and, like any company, there are times when an initiative is pushed only for it to fall apart. Not every project will be a home run. Also, the industry is full of old technologies and lots of “status quo”. Change is looked at skeptically. From a sales perspective, it’s a challenge to educate prospects on the value of the technology.

Cons

Not a lot of room for growth for many employees.

Cons

low pay for a tech company

Cons

Often feels like others are not doing a lot. Work drags out for days when it should take 30 mins max. Frustrating when you're waiting for them to finish their piece before you can move on Doesn't seem to be much action on this stuff when escalated You message someone something you need, then they pop up with activity on LinkedIn or Reddit. Hours later you get a response with an excuse Innovation time biweekly but again not sure what they're doing. Same people sit in a coffee shop or watch Netflix for all we know, I've never seen them produce anything For those who don't drink much team days seem a bit frequent. Same people prep for team day then prep for weekend and do nothing the whole week Company does a lot right but the above really takes it out of you

Cons

I don't really have any to share - I've been here almost a year, and it's an amazing place to work for.