Good place for young developers
Gut am Arbeitgeber finde ich
Very good place for young developers, because more experienced colleagues care for you. Strong team spirit. Fair work-life balance.
Schlecht am Arbeitgeber finde ich
More experienced developers regularly miss variety in their jobs. It’s not a career stepping stone per se. Project managers need to have a thick skin (“sandwich-position”). I can’t remember anybody who did this job for more than 3 years.
Arbeitsatmosphäre
Managing partners invest and hope to gain profits and growth rates accordingly. Not long ago management has introduced a bit more organizational structure to support management control. They take care of impediments. They do not empower teams to do so themselves. Management has specified vision and values for the company. In the end, I could no longer identify myself with the way vision and values were practiced although I was very enthusiastic when I joined. Compared to German Mittelstand I find the atmosphere to be pretty modern.
Work-Life-Balance
Work-life balance is in your hands. Extra hours for project work are rarely demanded. Rather they can accumulate when you stay long to support colleagues or study to advance yourself. Working hours are pretty flexible, remote work is regularly granted and taking your holiday is uncomplicated. On the other hand holiday entitlement is clearly below German average.
Karriere/Weiterbildung
You’ll find plenty of freedom to educate yourself further. There‘re no career paths or training programs laid out ready. You need to get going yourself. After all it’s a small agency with little demand for people moving up classic career ladders.
Gehalt/Benefits
Salary was OK. I didn’t join Sitewards because of that. As usual: drive a hard bargain before you join. Afterwards it can be painful to get a pay raise.
Kollegenzusammenhalt
You can always count on your colleagues. It’s an international team that welcomes everyone. Many colleagues keep in touch after working hours and even after they have left the company.
Umgang mit älteren Kollegen
The team is pretty young and “older” colleagues are hard to find. I think there’s nothing to worry about.
Vorgesetztenverhalten
In this regard my experiences have been pretty divers. In principle your superiors care about your concerns and are eager to create working conditions that support productivity and a positive atmosphere. There are/were a few very talented leaders. Unfortunately this doesn’t hold true for all executives. I have observed rare cases that seemed to me a lot like putting individual co-workers under undue personal pressure for a long period of time, if they seemed to (no longer) fit in. This left me very disenchanted.
Also, some typically stress-induced sick leaves were exclusively seen as a result of private issues or insufficient resilience. Management reacted with resilience trainings.
Arbeitsbedingungen
I was always very happy with the office environment. The central location is great.
Kommunikation
There are 3-4 all-hands meetings every year in which the company’s situation is explained openly. News will also be shared during daily stand-ups.
At the same time there was limited room to openly discuss cross team issues. That was usually handled behind closed doors in order not to “unnecessary distract others”.
Gleichberechtigung
I never watched disdain or discrimination against female colleagues. However, there’re only few of them in the company. When I left none of them was working in management or development or as a project lead.
Interessante Aufgaben
Most new clients bring existing business models and system environments including a lot of technical debt. Chances to be really innovative under the constraints given can be quite limited. Most people who have been on board for a while look for a niche and either find it or leave.