Pros
- Great Benefits - Relocation FAST works you hard but you get paid for that effort. Pay is higher than most positions of similar work, especially for right out of college. They give you ample opportunity to move around the US and, if you're with the company long enough, out of the country, and they pay for most if not all of your moving expenses. Additionally, if you like the bar scene, FAST's favorite after work activity is happy hour on the company's dime.
Cons
- No management training - Very little transferrable skills for software developers - Poor work-life balance - Inner circle One of my biggest issues is there's next to no management training. FAST is organized on a horizontal structure, meaning you don't really climb in your career through promotions. I'm not complaining about the difference between vertical and horizontal organization. My issue is that this means they tend to make people who have been with the company longer managers, whether they have good leadership and communication skills or not. And these people aren't trained, they're just given a group of coworkers to tell them if they're doing right or not. Sometimes the managers are good, sometimes they aren't. Furthermore, any complaints against managers are generally ignored (at most, managers are given a slap on the wrist) because they can't afford to lose people who actually know their systems. This leads me to point two. Important note: this point really only pertains to those who are seeking a career in software development. If you’re a math major or some other non CS major who just needs to make a few bucks to pay off student loans, this is an fine choice. With that out of the way, FAST software includes homebrew solutions for their entire system, from source control to simply how to store data. The reasoning is because the founders didn't like any solutions before so they built their own. Fine, that’s a noble story, but when every other major software company uses open source tools and common objects like Git or simple linked lists and arrays, it’s very difficult to progress in your career meaning you get stuck until you retire. Not to say you can’t be creative. You do gain some SQL knowledge and general problem solving through Visual Basic. But if you want to move on, you’re usually only qualified for low level positions elsewhere. Point number three, FAST’s motto is work hard, play hard. This really means work until you’re exhausted, then get back to work. They do pay overtime (at time, not time and a half), and claim that it’s optional barring meeting deadlines, however, I found that even on production support (not upgrading, not building a new system, just supporting a current active one). You’re still expected to get an amount of work completed that requires overtime. For the life half of this “balance”, they tout people who have spent their out of work time playing games, hiking, exploring the world, but in reality 95% of teambuilding activities end up being happy hours, especially when the owners come to visit a site. Like I said in the pros, if that’s what you like, boy do I have good news for you. If that’s not what you want, don’t you dare skip it, cause that’s how you get looked down upon in the company, which… Leads me to point four. FAST is one of those companies that considers all their employees a part of the Fastie family. I now have issues with the “family” concept in company culture because of FAST. If you want anything, whether that’s to move to a specific place, not move from your current location to get some stability, or even just a decent raise, you need to show that you’re a Fastie. What does this mean? This means you spend as much time as you can doing work, working overtime if you have to. You show up to all the “teambuilding” happy hours, especially when the owners come by so you can schmooze. You stay loyal to the company for years no matter how they treat you. The family culture is honestly toxic especially with how big the company has grown. Far too many people are now outside of the inner circle that’s there’s no point in calling the company a family.