Good experience, not a long term culture fit
Pros
Small, family-like feel where people are friendly and cordial. Being a smaller company means there is a sense of community and direct access to leadership. The office space is brand new and the technology is excellent- fast, updated versions of everything... direct access to IT is a plus. Nice end of year holiday party to which spouses/guests are invited, annual summer picnic, monthly meetups in the office (think beer and pool/ping pong). Casual dress code. Volunteer activities in the community. Close proximity to Wegmans. One of my favorite experiences was I was able to attend a conference in Philly for 3 days which the company paid for along with my travel and expenses.
Cons
HR Coming from a corporate background it was an adjustment that there was no HR "department”. There is one person who oversees Finance as well Human Resources. As a woman I found it difficult at times to bring up real HR-type challenges to a) a man and b) a man who is also in charge of financial matters. It's a small company so it is what it is- but worth noting. Also worth noting- no paid maternity/paternity leave. (Short term disability is available and is company paid.) Evaluation Process In SAI Digital you are primarily evaluated on how many hours you spend working on billable work— aka client work. If you have a goal to meet X number of billable hours, but you don't hit that number, it impacts your performance review (and bonus- so negotiate salary outside the assumption your bonus is attainable by hard work). The problem with this approach is that you do *not* have control over how many billable hours you are allocated. So, if sales are low, and there's no billable work to do, you will spend your time on "overhead" hours, which you get negatively evaluated on. It's not a fair system and you don't have control of your success. Professional Development Opportunities As I mentioned I was really grateful to attend a 3 day conference in my first year with the company. However I asked to attend additional conferences pertaining to my work area as well as take paid remote/webinar training and those were not approved. Not having the opportunity to attend training was limiting to my own growth. Random It's hard to get used to only getting paid 1x/month. You have to budget your money well. Bottom line: this company was good to me, but it's not somewhere I could see myself staying for an extended period of my career. I gained valuable skills and had some great opportunities but ultimately it was not a good long-term culture fit.
