What is the hiring process like at iTech Media?

Pros

When I joined iTech Media it was still a small company with a nice culture. Here I met incredible people that I can still call friends nowadays. The list of benefits was really endless and grew even further, but apart from the people and the benefits, I could never see other positives in my two years there.

Cons

Where to start. First of all, I am pretty sure the one sentence super positive 5 stars reviews are fake as the Monopoly money, especially the most recent ones, since iTech has laid off lots of people and is planning to keep on laying off. So obviously they need to protect themselves in some way and avoid the Glassdoor rating from going down. Everything the negative reviews are saying it's true. The benefit of working from home wasn't even a reality when I was an employer and you were expected to march into the office 5 a days a week, even with a tube strike. There's never been any transparency on anything and the office sometimes looked more like a high school, with people sleeping with each other and management not doing anything to stop it. They don't listen, they operate in a very old-fashioned american way and if they like you, you are golden. The minute you try to express your thoughts or just being honest about anything you are done. The cult-culture vibe is real, and if you don't participate in the endless social events (like you don't have a life of friends outside of the office) "you are not living up to the core values". It was, it is and it will always be a toxic environment because they do not care in reality about individuals, they just want to make money. They hire experts but don't listen to them and do things because the other companies are doing it and want to conform, even though the products they have are not even comparable to the big companies they are trying to emulate. During the interview process, most people don't even know what their product is or what they sell, probably because deep down they know their products are not the best and the competition is doing a much better job? They sell hard their benefits during every interview though.

Advice to Management

They never listen to any advice anyway, so I am not going to waste my time.

Pros

People in senior leadership do believe that they are doing the right thing. They may be misguided, but most of them have their heart in the right place.

Cons

The company talks a lot about inclusion, and whilst it's inclusive of people's gender, sexuality and background, if you don't fit the mould of the company culture - "work hard and play hard" - then you'll feel excluded and feel as though you don't belong. No amount of free snacks and social budget can make up for the way people are treated if they don't conform the same way of thinking as the leadership team. Diversity of thought and approach to work is not welcome in decision-making forums. A small group of people who all think alike make all of the important decisions. Engineering is not a key function of the company, and decisions are taken by other parts of the organisation with Engineering as the implementers rather than the innovators. In recent months, the leadership seem to be taking a leaf out of the "Elon Musk at Twitter" playbook in terms of how to "get the best" from staff. You also have to be comfortable with working in the space that the company operates in, which is generally not shared with candidates during the interview process so can be a shock to some who join.

Advice to Management

You don't get the best out of people by pushing them as hard as you can. If someone doesn't agree with the way something is done, try listening to them and learning rather than considering their difference a failing on their part.

Pros

- Empathetic leadership and genuine people-first culture, even when times are hard or mistakes are made. - Unbelievable number and range of benefits and perks (although many unique ones were cut in October '22 due to financial tightening). - Total flexibility to work and be your best self. - The London office is a lot of fun (and the attendance is not even mandatory). - The values of the company are sensible, easy to remember, and they are actually implemented/recognized daily. This is the first company I've found that talks the talk and walks the walk, and it's amazing to witness it. - 40 days per year "work from anywhere in the world" allowance, which is awesome!!

Cons

- Lack of transparency regarding the industry during the hiring process. If future candidates are reading this review, this is a company that generates traffic for the "gaming" industry (aka online gambling, sports betting, poker etc) by writing content/reviews for various operators. It's not an operator company, meaning it's not doing gambling itself. - Lack of transparency regarding decisions, especially financial ones. - Not well-implemented OKRs framework, and unrealistic expectations between hiring massively and ROI timelines.

Advice to Management

- During hiring, stop hiding the fact that this is a gambling-industry company. It's terrible to be surprised in this way during the first week. - Protect the people-first culture more than anything else. It's unique, and it's the glue that keeps the company together. - Many recent problems can be traced back to the lack of both management experience and realistic, down-to-earth strategic thought. Managing a company of 500 or more people is not the same as managing a small, family-run company. Mistakes and wrong decisions have a massive impact on the company and on peoples' lives due to the scale of it. So please, think things through and audit them with your employees first. - Stop using the over-ambitious, unrealistic and, honestly, cringy goal-setting language and messages. Our company is not Amazon or Google. Keep it real, and we will still be very prosperous and profitable.

Pros

For me, the biggest pro is work-life balance. Itech really cares about this one. There are plenty of talented and positive people to work with. Teams have a lot of autonomy. Company-wide training days where people can upskill. Every year there is a company conference in a nice place so you can spend 1 week with your colleagues in a 5-star hotel.

Cons

Most projects are simple websites so there are not many challenging tasks. If you want to deal with complex business logic or distributed systems then iTech is not a place for you. Management often is making decisions without discussing them with the team which impacts the morale and quality of products. Those decisions are not well explained to the team. If you do not scream loud about your successes you won't be recognized. A lot of very talented engineers were laid off recently due to company financial problems. The company is operating within the gambling industry which was not clearly stated during my recruitment process.

Advice to Management

Be more transparent with business decisions. Listen to your people.

Pros

The benefits they give are great, and the guilds (Groups of people who work together on matters such as charity work, women in tech and LGBTQI) are a nice touch. Nice people and have made friends there.

Cons

It is true that you need to be a 'cool kid' to get noticed at this company. The interview process is really long and then you have a solid first week of information overload. They hire experts and then do not listen to them, pillar structure is strange and pretty sure the top CEO team have no idea what's going on. Focused on having a good time, change their goals every year so hard to keep up with the company. I was hired to do X work with a team and then by the end of the year, they put it all in the bin.

Advice to Management

Be truthful.

Pros

Initial company onboarding was very slick, and very professional. Real emphasis given on individual wellbeing and team culture to start with was incredibly supportive. The benefits were great, and you were made to feel like a real champion before your first day. The company has some incredible world experts amongst its staff. The people in the company are some of the best people you can find. There is a real charitable ethos within the company, and they run various fundraising initiatives for important charities throughout the year. The founder is a true believer in volunteering for good, and there is generous time allowance given for all staff to contribute in this area.

Cons

The company waxes lyrical about its amazing culture and values (and rightly so), but fail to explain what products the day to day job revolves around. It can be a real shock for a new joiner to discover that the companies main products centre around the online gaming (gambling) space. (On the company website, this is just one of several areas of expertise). Everything changed overnight in the summer of 2022 with decisions made at the top of the organisation, resulting in mass redundancies being proposed in September 2022. Lots of great people left the company, either because of the redundancy process, or as a knock on effect. Trust in the company leadership had gone. To add to this, the company opened an office extension around this time.

Advice to Management

Trust the people you pay to make good decisions. Building up a team culture over 8 months to then change things without consulting them isnt a pleasant experience for anyone.