Pros
- Culture can't be artificially created, but it can definitely be nurtured. While it may sound like recruiter fluff, SPARC's commitment to having a thriving culture at the center of everything really does show through in the day-to-day life here.
- As a developer, I've never previously experienced the creative freedom I enjoy here. Rather than seeking to be a "Java shop" or a ".NET shop", the technical leadership here simply encourages using the right tool for the right job (with a pragmatic understanding that sometimes "right" is largely dictated by the interests of the team doing the work). As a result, I haven't had to use Java OR .NET during the two years I've been here (although both are used within the company...). :)
- While organizational scale requires some form of hierarchy, there is a very clear policy against requiring communication channels to follow any such hierarchy. Everyone from execs to summer interns are encouraged and enabled to talk directly to anyone within the company, CEO included. My own experience was that I had talked to SPARC's CEO (Eric Bowman) more during my first 15 minutes than I had with my former job's CEO over 4 years.
- The projects and challenges that we solve are varied and interesting. Some of our projects have direct impact on our nation's veterans, we create unique solutions for commercial customers, and we've built some truly awesome products and proprietary analytics technology.
- As a strong proponent of Open Source, I was happy to find that SPARC's commitment to Open Source wasn't just lip service. During my time here, I've been able to contribute to literally over a dozen Open Source projects and SPARC itself is Open Sourcing new projects as well (including entire applications).
- As has already been commented, the benefits are good, salary is competitive, and the coworkers are awesome.
Cons
No job is going to be without problems. SPARC has definitely experienced growing pains and at times communication could have been better. My own challenges here at SPARC have most often been minor, situational, and not endemic of the company as a whole. Part of SPARC's culture seems to being laying everything out on the table, so when murmurs turn to grumbling, you can pretty much count on a very proactive and open response.
