Real big brother vibe what with the surveillance cameras and all. IT has us running linux vm's within windows so they can monitor us; devs don't even have admin rights on their computers (not that it matters in the vm's). On my first day there was a palpable feeling of misery in the air and it was pretty clear nobody was happy. The devs are also separated within cubicles which makes collaboration and pair programming unnecessarily difficult. Really seems like they work hard at making the dev team unhappy.
Some fun facts:
- In the first interview I gave them my salary expectations. They moved forward with the interview process then once it was all done gave me an offer far below what I had asked for (apparently my range of market rate wasn't in their budget but they wanted to wait until I'd already gone through the entire process to tell me that). I was told everybody starts below market rate until they've "proven themselves" and can be trusted.
- Eventually I accepted the offer and the terms we'd negotiated were reneged after the fact.
- Firm no vacation for a full year policy, I don't mean you accrue for a year and end up with 2 weeks, I mean if you want a day off you have to call in sick until you hit your one year mark. Not a big deal though considering you won't be able to afford a vacation with how low they'll be paying you.
- Also not allowed to work from home, ever, whether you're sick or just need to make a quick update, doesn't matter.
- Mobile devs don't have any test devices.
- General disconnect and lack of trust between higher ups and dev team/really everybody.
- All of these things are apparent and known by the owners of the company and yet they refuse to make any changes, it's clear they have no concern for their employees' well-being or happiness.
