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Pensar Development

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Pensar Development Reviews

4.7

92% would recommend to a friend

(13 total reviews)
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John Murkowski

89% approve of CEO

91% positive business outlook

Reviews by job title

13 reviews
5.0
May 10, 2018

Pensar is the BEST!

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pensar offers employees a supportive company culture, flexible schedules, excellent benefits and extremely interesting work. The teams are super collaborative, social events are valued which includes: BBQ's on the office balcony (overlooking the beautiful view of the water) monthly lunches, beer on tap (wine too), a dog friendly environment, Pensar Ski Days, Charity Bike Rides, and more!

Cons

It's really not a con. Pensar is growing due to the increasing client work, and with that comes internal process/system changes etc.. but everyone seems to be adapting well to the growth inspired evolution.

5.0
Jun 11, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

+ Really smart people to work with + Low ego group with a good sense of humor + Everyone is willing to help and share their expertise + Focus and culture of helping others achieve and succeed + Engaged leadership team\owners + Thoughtful approach to management and adaptation to changes in the world + Employees are trusted + Focus on quality and transparency amongst clients and employees + Variety and quality of projects + Awesome benefits overall + Work/Life balance + Flexible working schedule (there is a ton of freedom as long as you communicate your availability and support your team)

Cons

- PTO is a little light (balanced out by other benefits and flexibility)

1.0
Jan 3, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Can't think of any reason to work here if you have a choice.

Cons

THERE ARE ZERO COMPANY HOLIDAYS -- even on Christmas day, if you don't work, you burn a vacation day. Nobody mentioned this until I was hired, then I got a well-rehearsed song and dance about how "flexible" they are about letting you use the days off you don't get. Very clique-y "bro" environment of beer and nerf guns and a frat-house attitude -- you either fit in or you don't and the cold shoulder is ready for you if you don't. It's an engineering-for-hire company, so work is entirely dependent on client needs -- which means mostly the same few clients' same boring work and someone constantly looking over your shoulder about what projects you're billing your time to. When an interesting project does come in, there's lots of favoritism and jostling for position about who gets to work on it. The office is noisy and dark with all the desks packed elbow to elbow (literally) in half the available floor space so the other half can...just sit empty. Location is in most congested part of the city, so it's hard to get to and parking is a huge pain. They said they'd never had a layoff in the history of the company, then laid off a large part of engineering a few months later -- that and nearly everything else they told me before accepting the job turned out to have been a lie or omission, from the benefits to the nature of the work to the clients to the technology.

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Pensar Development Response
6y
Thank you for taking the time to let us know what didn’t work for you at Pensar. We failed to connect with you to discuss these issues openly before getting to the level of frustration evident in your review, which is regrettable. If we had been able to communicate better, perhaps you would still be at Pensar enjoying what others think is an awesome place to work. To address your primary concern regarding holidays, PTO, and time management, our philosophy is focused on putting control of work-time in the hands of each individual so they can directly manage what is best for them and their family. Holidays are not prescribed. We believe that someone integrated into our system will ultimately experience flexibility difficult to compare to other businesses. A cornerstone concept at Pensar is “We want to make our Clients’ hardest problems our problem to solve”. Most everything we work on is our Client’s top-priority project. There are ditches to be dug in every profession, but not many would call our projects “boring”. We develop complex products on tight timelines with constrained budgets for our Clients. If someone doesn’t understand Pensar from this context, it is likely that there will be wildly different perspectives on many subjects. We have taken your criticism seriously and have been reviewing what we do and how we think about things to see if changes are needed. We are in the middle of the action on the waterfront, and 2019 was challenging with Seattle's viaduct demolition and on-going construction of the new Waterfront Park. There is no question that this has made it difficult to get in and out of Pensar. In the long term, we believe our location will be an asset to us and our Clients. Aside from these temporary disruptions, there are two things we do to ease the commute pressures. First is to support transportation preferences by providing a parking spot or a transit pass to everyone. The second is to provide a secure IT environment that supports working remotely when feasible. We continue to look for ways to improve flexibility in this area. Layoffs are difficult for everyone. For nearly 18 years, Pensar carefully managed our growth to optimize long-term stability over short-term, rapid growth that can lead to boom/bust cycles. In 2019, we experienced the first-ever layoff at Pensar. It was sobering, and lead to a redesign of how we manage sales opportunities and resource planning. To be clear, there were no lies or omissions. I sincerely hope you have found a good fit wherever you landed, and I wish we could have provided a better experience for you while at Pensar. Your description of what you experienced isn't what any of us wanted. Sincerely, Chad Brinckerhoff, Managing Director
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