The valuable employees have left, or are leaving. - Senior Developer OpenBet Employee Review

It is a known fact that OB underpays engineering staff. Which immediately makes more experienced professionals avoid OB. As they should - OB recruits "as young and cheap" as possible. HR implemented draconian changes who are only bearable by the young first-job starters, as they don't know better. To anyone with a decade or two of work on their CV, it's borderline insulting. Senior Management is drifting away from the people who actually work and create products that can be (and are) sold and represent the foundation of OB's income. When a meeting to discuss the Business Continuity plan (that OB does NOT have) takes 3 months to be scheduled, then the CTO decides he has something more important to do like going to Gibraltar to sugarcoat a customer... his priorities are wrong. Speaking of priorities, most of Senior Management has, of course, agendas that cover all day. Sometimes, even 2 or 3 events at once. Impressive! But the truth is, that timeboxing failure is mostly spent with meetings.. between themselves. Because, yeah, it's "fashionable" for all the important people to talk a lot. Just don't expect them to have time to talk to lowly humans. Anyone below level 5 is not worth their time. Internal HR should cease to exist - there have been many "recruitment drives" who are rushed and only bring more "cannon fodder developers" to the office, because so many people leave, and then they have to recruit in a rush. Although, lately, not so much "to the UK office", but more to the Romania and Greece offices. Not that it's needed. Not that it helps the business model - not at all, communication is severely impeded. But the workforce in those 2 places is so cheaper than in the UK, that there's enough budget to make some people go back and forth, catch a flight - because, let's face it - whoever just came out of uni and has 3 or 4 reasons per year to fly a plane.. feels important. Every week, one can read emails about leaving drinks of multiple persons - it is clear there is no global team being solidified, just many people in and out. However.. if someone just doesn't add much value to a team, then one can just shift to another team - the amount of people just going round and round is staggering. Obviously, when they get tired of the "pretend to be working" game, they just leave. There is absolutely no Information Security mindset - both internal and external. Just recently, everyone had to change their password, because one of the few people who actually care about security discovered that the passwords were being transmitted across the internal network in unencrypted clear text! This vulnerability was important, and yet the CTO decided to stay clear. He has so many meetings, that security becomes secondary. He is more of a salesperson than a techie. That's the kind of Senior Management Openbet has - the CTO is immune to the security of the internal network. And the Disaster Recovery Plan. And the Business Continuity plan.. etc, etc. Several customers are gradually becoming more concerned about the lack of security mindset in OB - and the fact there is no CISO to whom they can talk to. So, the internal network can be really bad, as long as OB shows the "Gambling Commission Compliant" face to 3rd parties, partners and customers - some people at OB really love an external crowd, so Products and Marketing are taking care of Compliance (external only) - which is just SO wrong. Internally, any kind and/or type of compliance is non-existent, but if the image is passed to the outside.. all is good! No wonder the CISO that was recruited left after a couple of weeks - he just saw the state of things, and ran away. Trying to get a new one is still ongoing, after more than 8 months - HR is not capable of recruiting a position like this, and considering external recruiters is a valid option that was still not considered. So much for the "internal progression" promises. Career paths are completely broken. You can either have someone who, after working for X years at OB, now has another "probation" before taking a new role, or someone who just promoted because a new office across the world is being opened, and a promotion can convince the insecure workers to just go wherever. The technology is outdated, and some components are pretty much .. laughable. However, the generation who thinks that Facebook/Twitter is how the Internet was made always try to generate momentum to implement everything that shows up on more than 1 tweet or RSS feed. "ohhh, Python! I read it's good! Let's do something in Python right now!". Note: these are the same individuals who think that the only Linux editor that exists is VI, because it's the only thing they use in their 2-5 professional career. I'd wager a bet (pun intended) that only 1 out of every 5 developers at OB knows joe, nano, pico, etc... But, more than harsh measures, what OB needs is a global maturity stance that sometimes (most of the times) can not be seen. Free fruit? Cool. Why is that guy carrying 6 pieces of fruit for himself? Free sodas? Fantastic. Then there's a global email mentioning someone was caught stealing, to take home. Free pool table? Awesome. Why is the room not soundproof, and who works nearby has to listen to constant noise of balls dropping on the floor? Take off your shoes at work? Nice. Buy hey, why do some people take off their socks, too? Disgusting. Going back to the Dilbert age of cubicles would put perspective into many people's minds. Also, one wouldn't have to hear that guy, who simply can't talk, and starts screaming as soon as he sits down. No, it's not a vocal chords damage, it's just a "hey! I'm here! Listen to me!" impulse control disorder. And this doesn't happen in the office only - it also happens in the aptly named "Trash" mailing list, where after a couple of months (actually, days!), you clearly see some people who just like to "add one more sent mail to the history" to try and compensate for their (justified) introversion.