xMatters Reviews

Pros

- Great culture - very diverse and multicultural people - learning opportunities beyond the norm - ability to express issues or concerns to anyone including one on ones with CEO (that actually cares and listens more then talking) - ability to work with cutting edge technology and systems - ability to switch between roles if you have interest in other things (support to developer or pre-sales) - BBQs, team field trips, and cultural events throughout the year - birthday cakes every month to celebrate each person's birthday in the office for the month - ability to work in West (Vancouver, Victoria) or East (Montreal) of Canada for development positions I worked at this company for last 5 years and seen the same culture throughout the growth. They care about you and your well being. They also make sure they invest in your skillsets and keep you happy in every way possible.

Cons

Nothing really negative to say about the company itself. Still growing and with growth comes adaption to changes, some people leave due to too many changes and others embrace them. Either way, company will figure things out as it grows.

Advice to Management

Keep doing what your doing, listen more to the front lines, so far management has been great in all the teams I worked in, but feels like some silos still exist.. but thank you for this incredible experience.

Pros

I left xMatters about a week ago and had some time to reflect on my experience there. I can't speak for other cities but I truly believe this is one of the best tech jobs in Vancouver at the moment. - The product is interesting. You're developing a platform that will be used by your peers (devs / DevOps) so your input is always valuable. - The incident management space is really hot right now. Look at the acquisitions being made recently of smaller competitors (VictorOps, OpsGenie, etc.) - Office culture is great and your concerns are usually heard by management. If you're frustrated with something you need to speak up. No matter how great your team-lead/manager is - they're not mind-readers. - There is a lot of work on career development and a true focus on trying to keep employees happy. It's not out of pure kindness - they just understand that if you're happy, you work better and everyone wins. - Work/life balance is a real thing there: flexible hours, work from home, etc. - Annual kick-off trips. This is a week-long event where you get to fly to somewhere warmer (Vegas, San Diego, etc.) attend some talks during the day and party with your coworkers at night. - CEO is charismatic, relatable and knows what he's doing. He keeps everyone in the loop when it comes to company's strategy and current state. - Yeah, and what other people pointed out. Snacks and free coffee/tea and beer Fridays and pub nights around the city. - Oh, I forgot this point. It may be a detail but you get to choose and order your own chair when you first join. Also, you get IntelliJ ( a blessing for a Java developer) and Macbooks. They really invest in giving you the best tools for the job.

Cons

I can't think of major cons that aren't being worked on actively by management but I just noticed I went crazy on the pros. So I need to think of some valid cons. - The small round of layoffs mentioned by other reviews is definitely a bummer. Unfortunately, that's the nature of the industry. Most companies that have been around for 10+ years have done it at some point. - The company's name isn't known. That comes from the nature of how they're doing business. They rely on salespeople and have big enterprise customers unlike other competitors that rely on marketing and have a bigger number of smaller customers.

Advice to Management

Keep doing what you're doing, it's working. Honesty is difficult but it's definitely paying. I know it's being worked on - but participating in tech events around the city ( or the world ). Also, maybe Hawai for next kick-off?

Pros

- Great engineering culture - Interesting and unique product - Nice and well-located offices - Free snacks, coffee, tea - Drinks on Fridays

Cons

- Bad work politics in some departments - Proper structure and leadership is missing in certain areas, which is the reason why some teams can't get on the same page - New investor came on board, change of business direction - Group layoffs

Advice to Management

- Be more proactive and act on market trends before competitors - Try to set a long-term growth strategy and stick to it

Pros

- transparent & involved CEO; can talk to anyone about practically anything and get real answers - everybody saying the right things about where the company & code is going - annual trips to Vegas for kickoff, other fun events - work/life balance and compensation are good

Cons

- Layoffs sap the energy, morale, and talent. Talented devs who weren't let go are looking outside for options before they're next. Expecting a talent drain over the next while as people figure out where they're going. - Talking the right talk, but actual coding & features are slowed way down by process, legacy, and more process. Very top-down approach to development.

Advice to Management

- People are your biggest asset. Plan your growth better to avoid even the smell of more layoffs - they affect not just those laid off, but us "survivors" as well, and eventually, potential new hires; make sure talented people have real incentive to stay before they leave. Don't sweep this under the rug - learn from it. - Find ways to eliminate some of the heavy process overhead, so devs can spend more time on the things that matter. - Keep being approachable and transparent. This is a highlight not many other places have.

Pros

Before xMatters I was working in an amazing company with great culture and was a bit worried to switch that I could lose all the great perks I was used to have. After first week in xMatters I knew I made the right choice. xMatters is a great company where everything is just awesome. I have no idea where are they finding all these smart people but honestly every single employee is super smart, super nice, super helpful and just a great human beings everywhere :) The job itself is super interesting. The product is unique and is great to know that thanks to all the team effort, hundreds of our customers are resolving their high priority incidents and other stressful situations faster and more efficiently. The perks are just perfect. Very competitive salary, kick off meeting, WFH policy, snacks/drinks in the office, regular paid lunches (Probably 3-4 per month), family day, engineering day, quarterly team field trips, one day every month to work on project of your choice, RRSP, learning budget and some others I probably forgot. All in all there are many teams within xMatters (5-7 people/team), but we all work as a same team. Doesn't matter in which team you ended up working as they are all the same, with great team lead and team mates, you will just work on a different service. Definitely recommending to all my friends and I'm super happy I made the switch (Although the previous company was also amazing :) )

Cons

Really cannot think of any. It can sometimes be a bit too much on your plate but that's just the nature of the tech industry

Advice to Management

Please don't change :)

Pros

It is a great company for technical people. If you do not like meetings the way I do not like it, it will be a good place for you. It is normal to have a day with only a standup meeting and proper coding time for the rest of the day. It is not uncommon to have that for the entire week. And the meet-less Friday is a thing (you can decline any meeting request for Friday, no matter how important it seems). This leaves enough room to get things done.

Cons

The meeting policy has its cons. When there is a meeting, it is usually a disaster. People are not used to them, so there are issues with sound, screen sharing, staying on subject, double booked rooms,... Granted, I am yet to see a company with efficient meetings. But when people are not used to them, the meetings are the worst.

Advice to Management

Stay the course, but do more guerrilla marketing. The top-down marketing campaigns are not really working in the field.

Pros

This has been my best job in Tech so far. xMatters is on its way up. The company has been around for more than 10 years and has a solid customer base. It also managed to maintain a "startupy" feel that makes working here extremely enjoyable. What I particularly like about working here: - Very talented people that will help bring your skills up - I've always believed in the saying "if you're the smartest person in the room, you're in the wrong room", and it's going to be very difficult to be the smartest person in here, or at least it's going to take you a while. - Working with the most recent Backend and Frontend technologies. - Flexible work from home policy - This was a pain point for a while and has been recently addressed by management. - The company is very serious about work/life balance. - Working on your own ideas and competing with others in a monthly hackathon. - Beer Friday / regular Pub outings / Fully stocked kitchen - Amazing central location on Granville and W. Pender with many lunch/happy hour options around.

Cons

xMatters is not active on the Vancouver Tech scene or the Open Source community. The company doesn't host meetups and doesn't participate a lot in the local tech events/conferences. This is unfortunate because we have a lot of extremely talented engineers that can contribute positively to the ever-growing Vancouver community.

Advice to Management

Don't compromise on the cultural fit when hiring people as the company grows. There is a great culture at xMatters right now and I'd hate to see that change.

Pros

- Really smart and friendly people - Work/life balance is better than any company - Very customer focused - Lots of cool and new technologies being used in new services - Focused on removing old features and technical debt (hasn't always been the case) - Management takes the time to listen to your concerns - Beer Fridays - Well stocked kitchen - Annual kick off and engineering day

Cons

- Legacy codebase (but thankfully getting replaced with new services) - Dev teams and operations teams could spend more time working together

Advice to Management

Invest more in removing of the legacy codebase