Alstef Group Reviews

Company had a bright future but took several turns for the worse in recent years. This is driven by a project management-dominated culture where decision authority often rests with people who are not even remotely qualified and/or who have never seen the inside of another company. By the time I left most teams were stretched ridiculously thin. Disillusionment, burnout, and politicking had become hallmarks and those with options were heading for the exit. Situation is made worse in software engineering due to very minimal representation of real software development experience in leadership and a heavily waterfall-aligned business model that only works when everything is known in advance. There are people in this company who proclaim themselves to be software engineering leaders while demonstrating active hostility towards even the most basic best practices. Expectations for how much effort things should take are extraordinary even within the same industry. Software comes last in the chain so if someone upstream causes a delay developers have to eat the crunch. Software and the teams that own them are often default targets for blame when things go wrong. Travel is offered as a perk but it often entails long hours in poor conditions and can be arranged hastily with very short notice. Keeping your wits about you is essential. Finally, many actors in the org in practice value firefighting and martyrdom over prevention. It’s better to be seen to be fixing a bug on a Saturday night than implementing a process to prevent them from occurring. Interesting and unique work but there’s much greener pastures.

In same area there are micromanagement