Blue Star Reviews

4.5

100% would recommend to a friend

(20 total reviews)

Daniel Sherwell

100% approve of CEO

100% positive business outlook

Blue Star has an employee rating of 4.5 out of 5 stars, based on 20 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Blue Star employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

20 reviews
4.0
14 Jun 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The president, Dan Sherwell, truly cares about each individual employee. He remembers your hobbies, the names of your children, and so on. He also cares about your happiness on the job, and is proactive about finding new opportunities for you, so that if and when you are ready for a new challenge, there is a job waiting for you. The training budget is extremely generous. You can use it towards technical books, conferences (registration fees and travel, if necessary are all included), classes, and the like. I exceeded my budget one year, yet Dan allowed me to go to another conference simply because he knew I would get value from the conference and share my knowledge with other employees. You can choose among many different health plans to best suit your needs. You can choose from an HMO, PPO, POS or HSA; most of these plans are fully covered by the company except for the PPO, but even then, you only pay a small amount out of pocket. The employee and dependents are fully covered, which is awesome. Time off: Some might not like this, but I think it's a cool idea: all time off, such as floating holidays, vacation, and federal holidays are all lumped together as PTO. Perks: We get a monthly internet stipend to cover the costs of broadband, and we get a free computer every other year. The company culture is great. We have DBAs, Developers, Sys Admins, and the like. Every other month, we have tech talks and a bonus is that we get paid to attend, and there's free dinner too! It's a great way to learn new things while meeting other people in the company.

Cons

Additional 401(k) match is given only at the beginning of the following calendar year, and is not fully vested. Other small companies gave it up front and it was immediately vested. It is difficult for management to truly ascertain the value that we provide to our customers, when they are not on site with us.

avatar
Blue Star Response
9y
Thank you for your review! We appreciate your kind words as well as your honest feedback. With regard to our 401K plan, it seems that there may be some confusion regarding Blue Star’s employer contribution policy. While you are correct in that the profit sharing portion of the 401K match vests over time, part of the company’s 401K contribution does vest immediately. Please consult the benefits section of our employee portal for more information, or contact HR if additional clarification is necessary. You also make a keen observation with respect to the challenges posed by having a geographically distributed team! It’s true that it can be difficult for company leadership to stay apprised of our team’s individual accomplishments. We do the best we can to elicit feedback from contract stakeholders, but we know this input is often incomplete. While it can sometimes feel uncomfortable to call attention your successes, we’d encourage you to take a proactive approach in sharing your achievements with Dan. We trust that you’re out there doing great things. Don’t be shy. Tell us about them! Again, thank you for taking the time to leave a review of Blue Star. We hope you’ll continue to communicate with us in the future.
5.0
13 Jun 2016

Outstanding

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Offers more stability than big companies (provides bench time) - Offers more opportunities than big companies (11 different contracts) - Puts on great events (tech talks, corporate lunches, take your child to work day, etc) and supplies a charge code - Provides charge code and covers payments for training courses - Benefits package is fantastic - Employees are treated as assets - Owner and BD are extremely well connected and I have reason to believe they will continue to grow the business and provide even more opportunities for employees - HR rep is extremely responsive and makes on boarding/benefits enrollment completely painless

Cons

- Nothing to list at this time

avatar
Blue Star Response
9y
Thank you for taking the time to leave a review! We appreciate your insights and will do our best to ensure that the things you love about Blue Star remain part of our culture as we grow.
5.0
25 Jan 2017

Fantastic small company

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The CEO and recruiter were great to work with in my transition to the company. Both are very accessible and more than willing to answer questions and take care of any issues that arise. Company meetings and the holiday parties are informative and fun.

Cons

Smaller company limits some of the new contract positions available, but we are growing.

avatar
Blue Star Response
9y
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback! It's good to hear that your transition into Blue Star was a comfortable one. Blue Star currently works on 14+ contracts in the areas of software engineering, systems engineering, and cyber security. The company successfully added a handful of contracts to our portfolio last year and continues to aggressively pursue new work. Rest assured that there are additional contracts likely to come our way in 2017. With regard to company events, we are always looking for new ideas for Blue Star get-togethers. There are some fun things in the works for this year but, should you ever have suggestions, please let the back office team know. Suggestions are always welcome. Thanks again for sharing your thoughts. Please continue to come back and leave reviews from time to time!
Viewing 1 - 3 of 20 Reviews

Glassdoor has 20 Blue Star reviews submitted anonymously by Blue Star employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Blue Star is right for you.