Vantaggi
• Fun and friendly colleagues when it comes to other engineers. Backoffice is not too bad either but didn't have a lot of contact with them. • You'll get to learn about workplace politics. • They had nice drinks and snacks when I worked there. • "Family feeling"
Svantaggi
Where shall I begin? • Management went downhill when somebody decided to fire 3 the directors of the different business units over the course of 1 or 2 years. In all fairness, they were not just fired as that's very hard to do, but instead they were 'persuaded' to leave. Persuasion means taking away responsibilities and having them done by several other people (one of which cannot handle the extra workload and has a burnout) or simply demotion. • Emotional manipulation of employees to the degree that the employee bursts out in tears afterwards. I really wish I was making this up and I'm not just talking about myself. • Management likes to threaten people who leave with legal action when there is no actual legal basis. And this dog doesn't just bark, it bites. I have had to refer multiple colleagues to a lawyer to help them navigate this horror story. If I asked for a referal bonus, I would've been so rich right now. • Management likes to start new business that's bound to fail because of malpractice, hire a new director for the job and fire them again when it inevitably fails to produced the desired results and profit. Unrealistic projections regarding size of the business. This means that they always try to get like 5 new engineers each month, which happens sometimes, while 5 people leave that same month and thus never actually growing. • Raises are supposedly based on how well you're doing, however the most important thing is that the company is doing well because a percentage of the profit gets divided between employees. In the end everyone gets the exact same average appraisal. • Pay is really not that good although they pretend to be in the 75th percentile. I got a 20% gross pay increase when switching to a different consultancy and pretty sure I could earn more if I switch to a non-consultancy. • Not listening to employees' wishes regarding travel. The contract says 1 hour max but in practice they'll try to send you farther away. • They fired an employee on the last day of their probation period. Not because the person in question was bad, but because they didn't have the money. • Lying about size of the company. As long as I can remember they've said to have 175 employees and that number never seemed to change. • What I learnt from my experience at Topic is that you should not tell them at all that you're thinking of leaving because then they'll just make you leave when it's most convenient for them. However, when you don't tell them and just hand in your resignation letter they'll circumvent the mandatory period (end of next month) and still make you leave early without any compensation for the lost income. • "Family feeling" in the sense that you'll be shamed and deceived by the managers you trusted the most. • You'll get to learn about workplace politics in the sense that when you leave you know not to trust anyone and always put yourself first. It feels like coming out of an abusive relationship. • Nice snacks are gone.