Great company to work for - Junior Front End Developer Headwire.com Employee Review

I have worked for headwire for a total of 6 years and I'm quite honestly surprised by some of the unfavorable reviews. As a seasoned consultant and Software Architect I have worked for several Fortune 500 consulting firms and believe that headwire is the only consulting/engineering shop where you can work with great clients on interesting projects while maintaining work-life balance. Every other consulting company and/or agency I have worked for claim that they offer work-life balance, but that was rarely the case. In my experience, headwire actually delivers on the right mix of work while allowing you to enjoy life. Their "flex hours" make it easy to take care of personal tasks through out the work week. In addition to the flexible hours, you are actually required to maintain a work schedule that rarely exceeds a 40-hour week (with the exception of the occasional "launch weekend"). Unlike the traditional consulting "road warrior," travel is near minimal (unless that's something you express interest in doing). In my time at headwire, I have been blessed to be mentored by the CTO, work on personal projects, contribute to a number of open source projects, design and build large scale web sites for amazing brands, speak at industry conferences, and most importantly--live life while building a career.

The only con is the steep learning curve to master some of the non-mainstream technologies used on most projects. headwire is largely focused on delivering large scale sites built on Adobe Experience Manager (AEM). It may take some time to become comfortable with AEM's underlying technologies (e.g. OSGi, Apache Sling and Jackrabbit Oak). Honestly, if you have a passion for software engineering, this is actually a pro. Not to mention this space is hot and pays well.

Many aspects I've disliked in previous shops (drama, politics/fingerpointing, gravy training, incessant red tape) simply aren't present at Headwire. It's a talented crowd with a company-wide culture nearly *completely* aligns with my values. I've always been treated fairly and have always felt well-supported by management. To boot, the client projects that I've worked have been incredibly diverse, and bench-time projects have all felt like designing stuff for Batman.

Enterprise software is understandably difficult and requires patience. Everybody's learning curves have different slopes, though, and I feel like some of the new-hires could have used a bit more onboarding when they started.