Pros
Benefits of an Accenture class company. Good Health, ok 401K, etc.... Avanade is a great place to hide if you are an incompentent former Accenture employee to apply to. Opportunities for College hires.
Cons
Top Heavy with management -- last promotion list (December 2011) was 40% for leadership, NON-REVENUE generating positions.... Too many 30 somehing and 40 nothing year old Directors and Sr. Directors that know very little on how to manage people. Clients/Customers: Mostly 2nd class (and many bottom feeder) clients.Avanade all too often ends up as the slave labor for Accenture gigs. Worse is the tendency by Accenture; they bring on Avanade technical people when the project is already in serious distress. Over 50% of my career at Avanade was spent on projects that were well underway and in serious trouble the first day I arrived. In the last 2 years, way too many of the Avanade clients are companies are either in serious financial condition and/or they are IT shops that have not been upgraded or properly maintained for at least 7 years or more. Nothing more depressing than consulting on trainwrecks, especailly when they are lead by people that have never had a success in the last 5 years. Selfish management structure.... If you are not one of their chosen few, your career is going to be totally static...December 2011 promotions list included way too many poor technical performers who were in bed with senior managers. Also, Avanade has been acquiring the "hand me down" worthless leaders from Accenture for the past few years. Just go to Linked in and look at the Avanade profile and look at the senior leadership....It looks like the dumping ground for the Accenture rejects. Employee review process in 2011 was totally dishonest. Too many final employee ratings got changed downward by one full level by corporate after the ratings calls and efforts leveled everyone. Compensation/Raises for Decemeber 2011 were terrible..... Anyone looking at Avandae should look at the number of senior level people that quit in the month of December 2011. A company that saw a 46% growth in revenue and had a great year year is handing out 2-5% raises for the technical people and equally pathetic STI bonuses. All this means is that the senior leadership is lining their pockets at the expense of the revenue generators. Of the people I know that left, all were getting 15-20% raise just by going to their new companies. Communications: Worthless and unprofessional..... 1) STI (Bonuses) that were payable 12/7/2011, no one got there letters confirming their STI prior to 12/10/11..... 2) Resignations and people leaving are never communicated to the remaining staff. Wasteful Fluff and garbage gets sent to you as pretend compensation. Remember the scene from "Blazing Saddles" where the Governor (Mel Brooks) and Attorney General (Harvey Korman) hand out bunch of Paddle Ball toys in lieu of real pay? Avanade is almost that bad!.... I have a closet half full of garbage that I will never use that has been logo'd with "Avanade" all over it... If they had not spent the money on this garbage and the postage to send it out and just send me a check, I might have stayed. For those of you Avanade fanatics, check eBay in January 2012, I will be posting this crap up for sale (Cups, coolee's, magnets, mouse pads, towels, frisbee, flashlights, pens, mice, travel mug, and a bunch of other stuff ranging from dust collectors to utterly useless.).