Pros
I worked at ByteCubed for almost 3 years. For most of my time, the culture on the tech side of the house was great. There were supportive leads in each department who were great mentors to junior and mid level developers - even those outside of the leads’ domain. Other Pros: - Casual dress - Snacks, sure - Ping pong - Parking/Transit reimbursement - Subsidized Crystal City Sport and Health gym membership - Flexible work schedule for some - Fun company events every now and then like Winter Olympics, march madness kick off parties, Halloween mystery
Cons
- Upper management is not trustworthy - Unclear company vision - Mass exodus of really bright people - including but not limited to every technical lead (So many people have left in the last year that the company website’s “Team” page is empty) - 15 days of PTO (includes sick + vacation) regardless of tenure - Attempts to appear progressive without policy and culture to back it up (ex. ByteCubed will send female staff to talk about Diversity in Tech but overlook employee concerns on gender pay equality). - Feedback requested but ignored on a variety of other issues -- desk dividers, plummeting company morale - Open office space with no privacy - desk dividers have been removed, almost all meeting rooms have glass walls (exception: 2), project teams are crammed into one side of the office while the other half of the office is under-utilized (used for sprint reviews and after work meet-ups only) - No parental leave - No harassment training besides an outdated multiple choice online test - No on-boarding process for new-hire developers Project managers rarely interact with the teams working on the projects under them. They show no appreciation or acknowledgement of the work being done, causing engineers to feel unappreciated. Project Managers were nicknamed “czars” behind their backs because their authority is coupled with no accountability. Project managers can be appointed based off of their ability to win business instead of their qualifications to lead. During my time at ByteCubed, this led to mismanagement of projects and inefficient meetings with clients. Product teams were stressed out since managers had no sense of technical side of their projects and everyone from analysts to developers had to step up to fill this gap in addition to their own responsibilities. In the last year and a half, almost all of the female engineers have left and all of the female designers. ByteCubed is only concerned with maintaining the image of being a workplace that values gender diversity. ByteCubed encourages women on the tech team to attend Women In Tech events and hosts events for progressive organizations in their office space. When an issue arises like gender pay discrimination or harassment, however, ByteCubed takes little to no action. Concerns about equal pay were brought up to members of upper management who responded with different and conflicting points. This seemed to indicate management lying or not being on the same page; both situations were alarming. On harassment: Official Human Resources complaints have been proven to have no effect. Human Resources either lacks the power or the desire to address problematic behavior and takes complaints to appear as if they are "listening." Harassment incidents do not prevent reward/recognition. On nepotism: it is rampant. You will have a different work experience (relaxed schedule, faster career development) depending on your relationship with the C-suite. On remote work: it is handled on a per person basis, instead of by policy. Upper management will promise some employees they can go full time remote then claim the federal government restricts telework when convenient. They refuse to put any of their promises in writing so they don’t have to be held accountable when they change their mind. On Technical strategy: new initiatives for the dev process and technology start and stop with little explanation. Management appears indecisive about whether developers should be divided into practice areas. Additionally, there is no technical on-boarding in place. New developers start off totally lost as to what they are supposed to be doing, who they are supposed to report to, and what engineering processes ByteCubed is following.