Primatics Financial Employee Reviews about "smart people"

Pros

- Very friendly coworkers - Lots of smart people to work with, either in the business group or engineering/software development space - Overall a relaxed company culture

Cons

- Low and slow career progression - Virtually non-existent review/evaluation = low raises (always 1% - 3%) -

Pros

Some REALLY smart people work here.

Cons

The company has failed to mature and is stuck at a plateau. Many of the most talented people have left, more are still leaving.

Pros

First, the biggest advantage of working at Primatics is that you are working with really smart people. Everybody says that but here you are really working with people with very high IQs Second, the executive management is really interested in fixing problems. Most of the senior management are made up of very analytically oriented people. Once you get them to take notice of a problem, they will find a solution. You do not find "check-the-box" kind of management here. The executive managers are deeply deeply interested in solving problems and moving the company forward Lastly, the company combines technical expertise with business expertise. There are a lot of experts here, and you can learn a lot

Cons

I've been at Primatics for 4 years. Over the past 4 years the growth has exploded and Primatics was bought over by the Carlyle group. As Primatics has grown, it has gone from being more people-oriented to being more process-oriented. Also, unfortunately, since Carlyle bought Primatics, everything is going downhill. Yes, when they first came on board, the company line was "Carlye is not telling us how to run the company. They are just advising us", which sounded like doublespeak, and it was Cost cutting:- The company is focused too much on cutting costs. Cutting costs is important but it would be better done organically. The execdutive managers who used to be domain experts have become bean-counters. The way costs are being cut is not right. A lot of the responsibilities are moving offshore because offshore looks cheaper on paper. The problem is offshore is not ready. There are a lot of inefficiencies assosciated with offshore that are not readily apparent on paper. Onshore employees are being laid off, and IME, tenured mediocre employees are being kept while newly hired top performers are being laid off. A lot of good people are leaving. Last 3 quarter the company has consistently said there will be no layoffs, and there have been layoffs every quarter. No one trusts them now when they say "there are no layoffs". Yeah there are going to be layoffs, and it might be me next time. Time to update my resume! Finger pointing:- A side effect of the layoffs is that finger pointing among the middle management is on the rise. No one wants to look bad, so they point fingers at the other team. Everyone used to work together here before Carlyle Egos:- a side effect of having really smart people is their egos. Especially on the technical side, different people are pulling the ship in different directions. There is no captain.

Pros

High pace, high energy small company environment. Some very smart people to work with.

Cons

Primatics hires senior software engineers and then assign them software installation and execution work. And try doing that for 12-14 hours every day. During crunch times, you could get a call at 10:00 PM for some work and expected to deliver by midnight. High employee turnover, Management keeps hiring more people to replace people who leave, without bothering to understand and address employee concerns.

Pros

Very smart people with good accounting experience

Cons

I won't rehash the work life balance issues cited elsewhere. But what they are selling is an advanced form of vapor ware, with the expectation that the client and staff pick up the slack and pay for the lack of testing and development.

Pros

Smart People, competitive compensation, good work/life balance. Co-founders are amazing!

Cons

Management has no idea how to manage. Everyone's ego gets in the way of real work. Meetings, meetings, meetings. And always the same people running their mouth to hear themselves talk. Middle/Senior management needs a complete overhaul. The company is struggling because there is absolutely no continuity or consistency. Everyone is so busy trying to make their presentation "pretty" for the endless meetings, they don't get anything else done. If I were a client I would be very concerned.