Pros
Nice physical environment. Meaningful jobs. Leveraging the newer technologies. Some nice perks. Adopted shop standards and a methodology.
Cons
The benefits are not par with IT shop standards. The benefits are a one size fits all for all the job classification with in the Macy's corporation. Since Macy's is a retail store all of the employees have retail industry standard benefits (unless you are upper management). I am not knocking retail associates because they deserve better benefits too. The training at MST is not geared to develop the workforce they hired. It is good for entry level but after that you are on your on own. MST would rather hire or contract from the outside rather then improve/enhance their in house talent. Advancements and or transfers for technical resources is almost non existent. Going from senior analyst to System Specialist is a very rare occurrence. The VP/Directors of the FOB (departments) are under restrictions for promotion to specialist and senior specialist promotions. They are also reluctant to let good talent transfer to another FOB (they don't want to replace you if you are good at what you are doing). Once you get into a FOB you stand the chance of being locked in for the remainder of your stay there. Advancements and transfers for non tech positons (business analyst and project management people is very good. For some reason the corporation has favors the people in these positions. industry) Sometimes this practice bring ill feelings to the tech people. The business analysts and the project management people start acting like your boss. In the past two years the company has cut back on full time employees. They now are hiring a lot of people as contractors through foreign staffing agencies. A lot of American workers were and are being terminated or offered early retirement. This practice is a necessary evil in the business environment to stay competitive. MST could of handled this change a lot better. The annual review system for actual MST employees is rigged in favor of the upper management. In many cases the scores of valid high performance ratings are downgraded to control salary costs. The upper management makes a big deal how important every associate is (they are called stars). However, as soon as profits drop these stars are shone the door as upper management gets their annual bonus.
