Only recommended if a dead-end job is the best you can get - Certified Programmer II Argo Data Employee Review

1.0
Jul 16, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Parking is nice. Some good people who were still there when I left. Training was mostly pretty good at imparting a base understanding of the proprietary language but imparting any other subject-matter information was wildly different from team to team. From seeing others, it seemed easy enough to slack off without consequence, so if you just want to collect a low-to-moderately sized paycheck for not much effort, that seems quite possible, with a caveat. You can have a good experience if you luck into being placed with a good manager who hides his/her good deeds from the corporate overlords, but chances are even then you'll be working with ridiculously outdated technology and developing skills that won't transfer outside of the company.

Cons

Caveat about being able to collect a paycheck endlessly for not much effort? Hope you don't land on doing an implementation. Implementation teams seemed to be whipping boys for the low-quality software, because they were expected to produce miracles with no time and little assistance. Their inability to do something that would qualify them for sainthood would result in a lot of wailing and knashing of teeth, with significant amounts of uncompensated overtime being how they were repaid for their efforts. The company practically never closes for any reason. In the time I was there, the company was closed for half a day for inclement weather. As I was later told by someone who actually showed up to the building in the morning on that day, apparently no one with keys decided it was worth coming in, meaning employees who had braved the icy roads wound up locked out of the office and the lack of anyone to open the building forced the company to take the extraordinary step of actually closing the office for half a day. Note the half-day. Roads had not improved and actually deteriorated some by noon, but they'd managed to get the building unlocked, so the office was open for business. That was on a Friday, and the following Monday saw another ice storm hit. Not only was the office open that morning, but that afternoon was when the 80 person layoff that is discussed in other reviews happened. "Congratulations on risking your life to show up to work, you've been laid off 2 weeks before Christmas, and your 'severance' pay is that we'll pay you through this month. Good luck lining up interviews for a new job just as Christmas and the New Year are happening!" That layoff was crazy. A fellow employee I spoke to sometimes got a promotion (that was coming through "once the paperwork goes through" of course) in the weeks proceeding that, only to end up being part of the giant layoff. The company has VPN capability, but restricts employees from working remotely in lieu of being in office. Got a situation where you have to be present elsewhere but would have the ability to work remotely? Too bad, take 1 of your 2 personal days for the year to cover it. VPN is only for when you've already put in 8 hours at the office but have to work another 4-5. I met too many people who actually had to make use of the system like this. The proprietary language is a goddamn nightmare to maintain. Their systems cannot be debugged on-the-fly. Most any change requires a process of rebuilding and reloading that can take 4-5 minutes to process. This leads to defect resolution often being nightmarish, particularly when you run into undocumented behavior and have to look desperately for one of the few people who have 10+ years of experience who might be able to answer essential questions. This happens way more than you might think. Company seemed to have no real goal going forward. At several points some long term visions of development were laid out, only for them to be scrapped weeks if not days later. Compensation was relatively poor, creating a great incentive for anyone who was offered a reasonable salary to leave, because they'd be getting paid more to leave this noxious environment. And as a final boot on the way out of the door, the company doesn't pay out any accrued vacation time when you leave.

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CEO approval
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Pros

Management cares about their employees

Cons

No work from home option

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CEO approval
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Pros

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Cons

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