Pros
Tom Sawyer Software is a long-lasting company that does very interesting and important work in data relationship visualization and analysis. The company definitely pioneered the commercial graph visualization and analysis field in the United States having started in its work in the early 1990s before many companies and organizations learned, or knew, that graphs would become widely important. It has important top-tier customers in many markets as well.
Tom Sawyer Software also has very nice facilities in a number of countries, and staff could go and work in other offices from time to time if they wanted to. The company also has pretty good benefits, and pretty good work-life balance. The work has become more agile and quick-paced in the last four or five years and the new work gets out there pretty quickly to customers as long as it is reviewed, tested, and developed to a high-level.
Also, the company has a very international staff, and this helps bring some respect and appreciation for different peoples and cultures. All of the staff including employees and consultants receive good salaries, stock options, and fair benefits. Staff has pretty flexible work schedules as long as the person earns the respect of the peers and managers. There are no second-class citizens in the company, it's a meritocracy where good careful work is appreciated by the staff and managers. It also has an egalitarian approach where everyone from senior executives and managers to entry-level staff is hands on and is supposed to work with the same rules. If there is a problem in the company, a person can report it to their managers, or their peers, or even to executive management. There is no criticism about it, just a sincere interest in solving what may need fixing.
The company has a long history of trying to be organized. It is building a lot of new systems and applications in order to improve the way the business flows. I think a lot of the staff see that now actually. The company also has a pretty clear path forward, is entering into larger markets with where it will have room to grow more easily, and it is trying to get all of this new work done. I think the company has a lot of new work for the staff so the next years should be very interesting for the people who work there.
Overall, I think Tom Sawyer Software is a great company and it is admired by many in the software industry.
Cons
Tom Sawyer Software is a very technocratic company. It is a good place for people with strong technical skills, who are organized, and are willing to work formally and properly use the company's systems. It is not a good place for people who don't like to have their work reviewed, and it's not a good place for people who like to do quick and dirty work, or who are not clear or don't do what they said they would do. It's not a good company for talkers. It is not a good place for vertical silo or fiefdom builders as the company is always tearing these kinds of structures down.
At Tom Sawyer Software the work will iterate over and over to a high-level. Even senior executives should expect to have their work carefully reviewed by multiple people in this company. If a person doesn't like having to get something very, very clean, this this would not be a good place for them. But overall I think that the company is fair in how it approaches work.
