Pros
Training and certification opportunities are good. Highly flexible working arrangements available.
Cons
Where to start? The company merged with UKFast a few years ago, which is how I ended up working here. UKFast absolutely had its share of faults and downsides, but they were nothing compared to the joke this company has because since the merger. If you're a member of the incestuous Manchester-based tech community and have heard the (in)famous stories about UKFast, well, it's worse. ANS and UKFast shared private equity investors, who in their infinite wisdom decided to merge the two businesses because our product offerings synergised quite well. On paper this was actually a decent idea, but the execution has left a lot to be desired. High-ranking UKFast staff have been leaving in droves, we've had three different CEOs since the merger, we don't have a CTO (a tech company without a CTO?!). The current board is filled with sales and finance people who have no idea how to run the business and provide zero technical leadership beyond cuddling up to Microsoft. Even people who didn't like UKFast would grudgingly admit that we did support right. It was genuinely first class, though it did tend to cause engineers to burn out quickly. Since the merger, support is now mostly run by apprentices and juniors, and there are little to no senior staff left who can teach them the skills they need to succeed. The company has just made a significant reduction in headcount, about 10%, and it really does feel like the departments that came over from UKFast have taken the brunt of this reduction. Extremely talented and long-serving people have been let go or simply taken voluntary redundancy, having had enough of being treated like second-class employees. Those put at risk during this process, but now saved from redundancy, are angry and demoralised. The reduction of key teams is bound to have a significant impact on the business that the board just do not understand, because they have no idea what these parts of the business actually do. Zero due diligence has been done before making these cuts, and it's only a matter of time before things start falling apart, with the significantly reduced teams left holding the bag. The irony here being they've made cuts to teams that were actively working on products that are part of their much-lauded business strategy. If it's not a Microsoft product or service, the company isn't interested. It seems all they want to do is resell Microsoft and get people onto Azure. They do not understand - and do not want to understand - the value-add that the rest of the business can bring. They'll give all the time in the world to Dynamics experts and low-code rubbish without any clear direction into how these products are going to bring in revenue. They've taken one look at some Gartner hype charts and decided to pivot the entire business to unproven areas just to make the business appear more attractive to buyers. If you're a Linux expert, I'd advise finding somewhere else to work - your services won't be required for long. The board only care about reaching their EBITDA target so they can sell. Private equity investment from Inflexion has ruined both ANS and UKFast and destroyed the heart of these companies. Lots of talent has been made redundant or has bailed, and the rest will likely follow.
