Thoughtworks Employee Reviews about "social justice"

Pros

First the positives: - Still manage to attract smart people - The number of dimwits in the company is lower than in other similar outfits - You get some variety in the kind of work over a period of time

Cons

- The company has lost sight of what its core strengths were - building complex software systems - and is now doing any and every piece of so called coding that clients throw at it - This means it has been growing, and not enabled its hiring intake to be brought onboard in a way that makes sense - But since the quality of work has deteriorated over time, there is no need for the population to operate at highly skilled levels - They have launched some practices in the recent past, like analytics, but a miniscule number of people get to work on it and actual commercial projects in the space are yet to take off - ThoughtWorks is supposedly a company with minimal hierarchy - that myth has been laid to rest many years ago. So called leaders operate like feudal chieftains manning the company coffers, doling out sops for their groupies and themselves, while the vast majority wonders why the profitability is low. - Hare-brained initiatives are launched every so often, with fancy names, acronyms and leaders for these. They die a natural death without having delivered an iota of change or benefit, but lo and behold, come the new year and you will hear of a whole new set of initiatives and leaders to go with it. A smell is that recently launched a global innovation theme and as we all know, the second you have such a grandiose body, innovation stops. Maybe next year they will relaunch it as Continuous Innovation. - The overheads are so vast I think that a small country can be fed on their budgets : functions like recruiting, marketing, internal communications and people burn up money faster than the US Federal Government, flying themselves to fancy locations for so called workshops and planning sessions. - The latest fad is to have multiple people do a job. This is given a fancy name "X in a box". So you have cases where a region is managed by 4 instead of 1 Managing Director and an office is managed by 2-3 people where 1 might suffice. This is apparently done to provide greater coverage and learning opportunities, which, truth be told, is fine, however in some cases rank inexperienced folks are propped into such positions just to satisfy a notion that you have to forcibly get a certain gender, place of origin or some such 'diversity factor' represented in leadership. Whatever happened to plain old merit? - The company prides itself on 'fail fast', 'quick feedback for course correction' and other such Agile mantras. But they like to apply this only to the poor foot soldiers who work on projects. If you screw up, then you will get 'feedback'. If you don't improve, you will be put on a 'performance improvement plan'. And then fired. But do they apply this same yardstick to the management? Oh no, for them, any level of incompetence goes. So you have completely useless people holding positions of power and earning fat salaries to boot, while delivering almost zero value. Thankfully some of these people move on to greener pastures on their own, like one such clown recently did in the office in western India. He was completely useless in a bunch of billable roles, but was put into running some fancy-titled office which delivered less value than a post-it note. - The Chairman jet sets around the world spouting anti-capitalism, but is a pure bred capitalist himself. If he was so concerned about equality and justice, why doesn't he ensure that ThoughtWorks repays its venture capital partner who is owed millions? Different strokes for different folks. - He is the single most biased and irrational leader I have seen. He will trust anything he hears without bothering to even consider the other side of the story. The present crop of global leaders are not able to contain his bilious diatribes, leading to confusion wherever he goes. - He also had some ephiphany some years ago that the company needs to have a social impact angle. This has translated into nonsensical offices of social justice being created. All they do is fly people around the world and talk. Granted, there is actual good work going on in several places where software to help hospitals and the like are built. But the noise outweighs this good work. - Recently in India we had an away day where some random activists were called to spout their opinions. All well and good, but was any debate allowed? The second someone raised their voice, charges were drummed up against the person and summarily exited. Almost Stalinist. I saw it happen. So the mantra is "social justice for all" and "free speech for mankind" but please don't speak against it inside the company. - The company also prides itself on its values and ethics. Horse manure, I say. There is evidence of people way up the food chain sleeping with clients and potential clients to win and keep business. Perhaps they will define a new pillar for that and call it P5. - Thankfully I am soon on my way out of this quagmire of lies, deceit and self-proclaimed righteousness.

Pros

- Some great people to work with. - OK Food, decent office space, open desks, Macbook - Open to let you learn. - A very safe, nurturing environment to settle down.

Cons

- Very immature & spineless leadership - They have no strategy on business but rely on cowboy style of management. I haven't seen any so called leaders make a decision and back it up with some strategy/guts. I dont mean that their decision has to be right but they don't even have the guts to make a wrong decision. Business as Usual is their strategy and they like to look the other way when faced with any situation. They don't understand iota of business or people....all speeches are same with some words juggled here and there. "I HOPE" is the most common phrase used and which shows that all they hope is that everything would be fine. - People are promoted to higher positions without considering any past experience or anything but they would just go ahead and promote people without any accountability. I have never seen anyone been pulled up for performance issues in these leadership positions. - In last few years best brains have left the organisation and the management can't stop raving about themselves about how good the place it is. They simply have no brain power to understand why people are leaving and what needs to be done to stop this. - The company is fast becoming like any other regular services company with screwed up recruiting - people being made to run key initiatives where they don't have no past experience at all. In the name of social justice they are hiring more and more people with leftist/communist views and no brain at all. - People who know people are allowed to migrate to US/UK/Australia while others are told that there are no opportunities. We have a saying that TW India also gives you a honeymoon package i.e. connected people get long term abroad assignments just after they get married. - Founder is like any other ignorant AMERICAN who wants to change the rest of the world but not America. He also believes that rural Indian needs free internet more than food, clothes and a house.

Pros

- Environment (safe, open, feedback based, inclusive) - The company is always. trying to improve work conditions for the employees and organises team/social activities - You work in the same company where a lot of well-known book authors work, and it's not unusual you can participate in email threads discussing interesting topics with them - The company takes your opinion into account before the assignment to a client or project is made - A lot of different technical stacks available to work with (depending on concrete client, of course) - Anual reviews happen taking into account a lot of opinions (not only that of the boss) - You own your career path. Career-changers are not unusual. - Actively promoting conferences, meet-ups, etc. (internal and external) - Actively promoting inclusion and social justice

Cons

- As you own your career path, sometimes you can feel a little bit lost/overwhelmed - Concrete technologies to use in a project are usually limited by current investments of the client, so maybe that new thing you'd like to use in a project is not possible

Pros

ThoughtWorks is a company of self-selecting high performers. Those I have worked with when we are on the project together and those who I interact with socially at company events often have some sort of standards that they hold, be it work ethics, technical excellence, or social justice issues. Lively discussions and passionate debates are expected and encouraged, even by the management. Career changers especially on the junior level are welcomed which I appreciated. Self-starters and go-getters will enjoy this environment a lot. Management always takes our views into consideration.

Cons

I believe pay for developers is lower than a product company. Sometimes my impression is that the louder people might have gotten a bit more attention, but there are structures in place to recognise those who do not have the loudest voices. Otherwise not particularly cons... but ThoughtWorks is not for everybody, for example I believe those who need more structure and support might not find it comfortable to work and progress their career here.

Pros

ThoughtWorks is probably one of the best medium/large tech consultancies and is considered a premium consultancy. It has some very smart people who are leaders in the software industry. They do a pretty good job hiring good people that are not just smart but enjoyable to work with. It is a rather flat organization which is good for people that are more self-reliant and able to hustle for recognition and responsibility. It has an open culture and most people feel free to speak up to anyone. People at TW really care about the software they are delivering. They see it as reflection of themselves and something to take pride in. If you hire a team of them, they'll probably end up caring about your project more than you do and work harder at it. ThoughtWorks prioritizes pairing when delivering. There are many good reasons to pair but from the point of view of the employee, the biggest benefit is probably that it is the fastest way to learn to become a better developer. The people you pair with with fix many of your bad habits and teach you new things, even if they are not more senior. But this is particularly helpful for more junior people. TW is a great place to start your career and I'd recommend it most highly for people right out of college.

Cons

Every company has a mythos that they tell themselves about what they are and where they came from. ThoughtWorks is no different. And in reality no company really lives up to it. Same here. No, we are not a socialist company and never were. No, social justice isn't just as important as making money. No, we aren't all elite technologists, standing head and shoulders above everyone else. But these things have a big enough grain of truth to matter. We're not a perfect company but are far better than most. TW was a much smaller company when I started and a better reflection of its mythos than today. We're becoming a more regular company everyday especially since we are now owned by private equity. That event hasn't led to any night and day changes. You need a longer baseline to notice the changes and it's not all due to that sale, nor are all the changes bad ones. The culture is a very politically liberal one, thought that probably isn't much different than most tech companies. If you are more moderate or even conservative, you might feel a bit out of place but won't feel threatened. Politics doesn't really enter your day job so don't worry about it. One limitation of ThoughtWorks might be that most people grow out of it. Once you're a lead or principal consultant, you might feel there is no natural place to go next. You might find there are better growth opportunities elsewhere and there probably are. It's pretty clear that TW will keep heading in the direction of becoming a more regular company just like all of them that end up in the laps of Wall Street. That might be a less inspiring reality for some people. Work life balance is OK. Now, during COVID, it's great because we all work from home. But before COVID, it wasn't as good. Travel which can be as much as 4 days/week takes a toll. Much of the travel seemed more like force of habit than actually useful. Hopefully, this pandemic will lead to lasting changes with less travel. Salaries are competitive but the best people are probably underpaid.

Pros

Diversity & Inclusivity, focus on Social Change, agile values, working with new technologies, working with different clients and industries, focus on growth and personal mentorship, indefinite remote work from Spain, time in lieu for overhours

Cons

Less focus on social justice and more focus on growth since founder left the company

Pros

The global focus on social justice is admirable Some excellent people with longevity with the company and comprehensive knowledge of how to best navigate internally An active working environment of inclusion and diversity Excellence in software engineering

Cons

High level of intellectual arrogance which I found could not be substantiated. Too much internal focus and 'navel gazing' making improvements slower than required. Not enough focus and understanding of the needs of the customer. Lack of commitment to understand customer urgency.

Pros

- Some of the most awesome people I have ever met, they are welcoming and friendly and don't hesitate in helping you when you need it and equally will have hard conversations when needed - Put people first - lots of places talk about this, but the actions match the words - the response through COVID has been nothing short of amazing both in AU and globally, ensuring that people had what they needed and were safe and all communication was straightforward and open. - Lots of different opportunities - being a consultant you can have gigs that go from 6 weeks to two years depending on what you want to do. There is getting to be a fairly diverse client set locally which means you can work in big corps, scales ups, start ups to not for profits depending on where your interests and skills lie.

Cons

- Relationship driven organisation - it can sometimes be hard to get where you want without having the right relationships with people, it seems like this isnt as much of an issue as it used to be, but if you don't focus on building relationships it can be tough to progress in the direction you would like to - It can sometimes feel like having two jobs - you have your billable client hours plus all the 'extra' internal stuff that you can get involved in (special interest groups, internal projects, social justice stuff) which can make it hard to get a work life balance but you will definitely learn lots by being part of the extra stuff and for the most part theres social aspects to it too - client life - TW does have a strong internal culture however you are often placed within the clients culture which can sometimes mean you feel like you arent getting any of the TW goodness. We also tend to work on super hard problems so engagements can be super tough.

Pros

ThoughtWorks has great people who are very talented, smart and serious about software excellence. They are dedicated to improving social justice in the world though I think, unfortunately, they don't actually achieved very much in this regard. Young developers can learn extremely rapidly here because of pair programming. A wonderful place for young single people. Besides the intense travel expectation, they do support work/life balance.

Cons

Traveling 4-5 days per week is difficult for everyone except young, single people. Not a sustainable lifestyle for most people as they approach more advanced years and want a family. There is also a glass ceiling on both responsibility and pay so that retaining experienced people is very difficult. Experienced people find themselves mostly in a teaching role and many leave. The culture is a bit cultish and insular. If you are expecting to rise in the ranks of management, you need to be on board with the company dogma and social values, and leftish political slant. The Owner Roy is completely focused on growth and this is at odds with the consultants desire for interesting work on innovative projects. Pay is not very competitive particularly for more experienced people. Projects sometimes feel bloated and high cost to clients. We could be much more lean and become more price competitive.

Pros

- Pairing full time allows you to learn fast - Feel spoiled when you have to travel to a client in a developed country

Cons

- Probably worst salary in Recife given the experience required - Anual reviews are all about how you pretend to look like, not who you are exactly - Salary raise and career growth is 50% related to contributions to social justice, 30% to how you spoil the managers and 20% how you improved as developer and consultant - The consultant, senior, lead levels are interpreted differently across different roles just to justify the salary. E.g. a Manager who should be at consultant level is given senior or lead level just to justify the salary, so when people say you can make more as a developer than a manager is just a lie unless you're a guru - You have to be left-winged otherwise you're not welcome - You have to like and support the whole LGBT agenda to be successful or look good, otherwise you're bad person and not welcome - You better go to all the parties, otherwise you're not cool enough for the culture - People that go to parties and get too drunk just take the next day off as "sick day" and that's fine because you went to the party and that makes you look good