Paradigm reviews

Extremely micromanaged. You have to track every minute of what you do, ostensibly so the customers can be billed correctly. In reality management also uses this to quantify how productive you were, and every few months the people with the worst numbers from each department are cut, and if a department performs "poorly" overall the manager may be cut too. This is all very hush-hush, so you have no idea that you're in danger of getting cut until it's too late. They'll warn you that you have 30 days to be more productive or you'll be let go, but by that point they're going to let you go no matter what you do. Of the 15 or so people I personally knew (including some managers and project leads) only 2 still work there. Everyone else got clipped or quit from the stress.

However, if you have some lingering spark inside you that likes to enjoy a job well done, you really pride yourself on your work, or you enjoy the benefits of your hard work when they pay off in a meaningful final product (whether that product is a thing or is just a task completed), then this isn't the place for you. Get used to disappointment if you take a job here. Your work will not be appreciated. What is appreciated is your ability to generate revenue through creating spin - essentially if you can bumble your way into forcing customers to spend more money, and if the work can then be done by you, then you will be appreciated. If you happen to be non-billable staff, or want to do non-billable tasks that help your coworkers or the software, you will be shunned by management as a troublemaker and dinged in your reviews. You may have big ideas to change this mindset, you may spend hours and days thinking about how to solve those serious organizational problems, but you will be wasting your time as the problems start right from the top, and any manager who tries to change the attitude at the top will be fired or quit. You will see managers who promise change come and go, the whole while telling you you just need to try harder, then leave for the same issues you're having. If you enjoy a Sisyphean job, then you may enjoy it here. If not, get prepared for constant disappointment.