A Potential stepping stone for niche programming in the finance industry
Pros
-Training in KDB+(Financial training) with videos and interactive sessions with tutors. -It gives you the possibility to learn coding with little to no coding experience, especially if you are from a stem background. -If you are lucky, you can work with real clients within 2-4 months. -Co-workers are usually nice and helpful. -You need to get a cloud certificate in the first six months. -The training is paid if you can justify the decision. -Can be a springboard in a career in banks/hedge funds.
Cons
- There is no proper career progression. The career progression was changed a bit last year, to be somewhat more systematic, but it only added hoops to jump through to get a higher title. A step in the right direction, but a lot more to be done. They usually sell you to the client as a senior even though you might just be a really good junior developer. But your salary wouldn’t reflect that. -Keep in mind, that you will be obliged to attend Friday stand-ups which are generally a waste of time. There is generally nothing important said there, that couldn't be summed up in an email. Attending these stand-ups should be voluntary and only necessary when there is actual proper business news. -Bringing up issues sometimes don’t get a response at all and need to chase the management/HR multiple times. Different examples of people chasing their payslip errors should be addressed promptly. -There is no merit-based approach. You can put in 150% and when another person puts in 70% then both of you get the same salary increase after the first year. The case remains 2nd year with 3rd year can bring slightly bigger increases if you fight for it. Recently there has been some change to this, but it still lacks any structure on how extra remuneration is rewarded. -There is really poor communication from management to staff about important key issues concerning either their future roles or other career key developments. Management does not take responsibility for their actions. They hope another member of staff has already told you the key info. This happens constantly with roles and important information. Would suggest over-communicating everything to people that need to know about it, as clearly the current system is not working. -They are experiencing growing pains. Keep in mind that they are losing senior people in the company with 2+ years of experience that were also part of the training and guiding new people. The median Tenure on LinkedIn is 1.7 years, which is not far from the actual company Tenure. As people get their skills and get better offers in companies that value their workers, whether it is more pay/holidays or better working environment. -Also, they are afraid to address people leaving the company even if they have been in the company for years and are just moving on to other opportunities. It is a taboo topic that is not spoken generally. -You might get lucky and go there and after 2-5 months placed on a client and learn through a trial of fire on the client project, which can help you along if you use that opportunity, but on the other end you might do internal projects for a couple of months and the risk is up to you if you want to take that bet. FD/KX do the same, but they have a more structured progression laid out. -Advice to people still working in AquaQ. Don't do any free work for them and fight for your rights, talk to your fellow workers to find out their conditions. If a client is taking up your evenings and weekends, then make sure you are compensated for that. You can get a £100 Amazon voucher for the Above and Beyond award that does not compensate for doing a 60-hour workweek. Talk with other employees who have weekend work deals with clients and make a difference for yourself. Also be curious about how the company works and know what your worth is, what the going rate for contractors are in the market, ask to talk and be informed about your work conditions, especially if this is your first work experience after university.
