JBS Dev Reviews

Terribly managed. The people in management positions are inept programmers who somehow became managers. There is a reactionary mindset as opposed to a proactive one. It's nice that they foot the bill for much of the health and dental plans, but those plans are pretty low-tier and lacking. One co-worker kept his dental from his last job via COBRA rather then taking the dental from JBS. For a company where everyone works from home, you'd think they'd be better at communicating, but communication is a big problem. They tend to take a reactive approach to things rather than a proactive one. And if you try to be proactive, they treat you as though you're being a nuisance. In the almost 2 decades I've been doing this sort of work, I'd never experienced as much stress as I did at JBS. The company acts as if they are afraid of their clients, always saying "Yes" to unrealistic timelines and invariably failing to deliver on time when they've made promises like that. When I interviewed with them, they sold me on the company as having the best of the best. While some of the newer employees are pretty sharp, this company is, in no way, employing the best of the best. Not even close. I've worked with much more talented people than I did at JBS. All in all, working for JBS was a miserable, stressful, frustrating experience. It would serve as a textbook example of how not to write software or run a business.

There were major changes in 2015. So much so that one of the core project managers had to leave. From personal conversations with the PM: he was promised "no fixed price projects". Some new CIO (not sure which C-level it was) broke all the promises and started to force fixed price onto people. The PM felt betrayed and felt that he had to leave. Not only that, but after the PM left, they simply gave the developers the PM responsibilities (one developer told me he was forced to create a "gant" chart, whatever that is). They pride themselves in "not doing staff augmentation work" They do staff augmentation work. It's very common. You'll be thrown into the client's world so much that you'll forget who pays you. They can't seem to keep good clients. So, they keep very bad clients that should have been dropped long ago. I can't blame the company for the former- perhaps it's an economic problem. Other reviewers talk about a lack of a hierarchy, but that's nonsense. In 2016 or so they started with a "team lead" concept. One of the greatest aspect of the company in 2015 was that there was no "team lead"; everyone was equal, anyone could disagree and argue any point, and the PM would make sure everyone had what they needed according to their technical abilities. The new idea of a "team lead" is a needless level of a hierarchy which made for a very hostile work environment. Disagreement became considered "refusing work". While the CEO is great, he seems to be blinded against some of the major problems in the company. Their life insurance is 100% of your pay. In other words, basically nothing. You pay a huge price for insurance for your family. It's free for the employee, but that's never enough for anyone. They always publicly state that they are doing great and are making millions, but this other equally public fact about their health insurance coverage contradicts that point. The PTO policy used to be fairly nice, but for some reason, they really started to tighten the screws on when you could take PTO. They didn't change their official policy, but they turned to a circa-1920-IBM mindset in 2015. It seems that all leniency disappeared.