Pros
HCSS is an excellent place for people looking to gain some experience at a software or technology company. It can serve as a terrific launching pad leading to a successful career somewhere else. They offer a good health insurance plan, a generous profit sharing and a strong sense of camaraderie among the entry to mid level employees. As noted by several of the interview reviewers, the interview process is long and seems overly complicated, but exists to only hire people who management believes will be a good fit for the company culture. This continues in the first weeks of employment as they hold classes and workshops to indoctrinate new hires into the company culture. This culture as presented is about empowering each employee to think and act like owners of the company.
Cons
The downsides of HCSS only become apparent after working there for some time. The company presents the idea of employees being empowered to think like owners, but the truth is you are really only empowered to think like THE owner. Mike Rydin is the founder, president & CEO of HCSS and holds the stock majority in the company. Every decision (and I do mean every) must go through him. From the colors of the software icons and the user interface layout to what each development team is to work on next must be approved by him. His decisions seem capricious and whimsical, and he will often contradict himself or completely reverse his position from week to week. This is the natural result of him trying to stay abreast of too many diverse action items and being unwilling to trust his employees to act. He and the senior management team that supports him refuse to recognize that there are some inherent problems with the technology platform (Visual Dataflex - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Visual_DataFlex) the company has used since the company started in the mid 1980's. They have a couple of new and unsuccessful products that use C#, but the company has no plans to migrate any of their flagship products to a current technology. The one place where Rydin does not often micro-manage is Technical Services (Technical Support, Software Implementation and Training). This part of the company comprises around one third of the manpower employed by HCSS and is, for the most part, left alone by President Rydin. Unfortunately, the result is a cliquish mob whose leadership is dictatorial and petty. Scheming is rampant among the different cells of employees whose quest to increase their power base is most often at the expense of another employee's reputation.
