Pros
Solution Stream does a lot to make you feel valued. They host lunches, game nights, movie nights, barbecues, a Lagoon Day, Spouse Appreciation Dinner, and Christmas Party along with a Back to School party in the park. Most of their events involve raffle prizes and motivational speeches. Their technical managers are skilled and always there to guide and help you in your career plus they are really nice, positive people. I couldn't ask for a more supportive group. The benefits are competitive and unlike a lot of contracting firms you can certainly work overtime to receive extra pay. That's always nice when projects are on a tight deadline and your clients allow you to work overtime to get the job done. The projects I was put on where engaging and they really put in the spot light were I had opportunities to do a lot of good and grow at the same time.
Cons
As for all the Pro's there are definitely some Con's. I started seeing little red flags here and there. I moved to work for Solution Stream and didn't receive a penny for relocation costs when other competing companies offered generous relocation reimbursement. The move was expensive. Unlike their competitors Solution Stream did not furnish a laptop that was up-to-date. I was given a subpar laptop that didn't have enough computing resources to get my job done so I had to go out and buy an expensive laptop for work. After my first contract with them a few weeks passed by. I referred some potential clients to them but nobody was biting. I have a strong front end skillset and they set me up with interviews where the clients were looking for a pure back end role and that's not what I signed up for. Eventually my manager came to me and said if they didn't find something for me soon they were going to have to let me go. That was contrary to what I was told when I started working there and contrary to the recruitment video where a co-owner by the name of Travis Cook said, "When our projects end employees stay." At this point I was more than concerned for my financial stability and with a family, bills, mortgage, etc. on the line I began to immediately look for future opportunities and found one with an 18% salary increase in just 8 days. The part that was really frustrating was knowing that they had some open positions online for individuals with my same skillset. I suppose they were anticipating future work but to me that just didn't seem right and I had to get out.
