No career progress - Software Engineer Liberty IT Employee Review

2.0
28 Jun 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Lots of training (if you are quick to book a spot in the classes). Possibility to get certifications paid as well (highly depending on your manager and department) - Possibility of travel (highly depending on your project) - WFH, flexible time and many perks which will make your life out of work very easy. - Social events - Very safe job

Cons

You can read the previous two reviews (March and May 2017) as well to have a good view about this company, I basically agree with all they said. - There's no control over technologies or skills of employees. You can be moved randomly from one technology to another completely different which will impede any career progression. Even if you are flexible and "agile" as they tell you to be and you are able to change, when deciding promotions it won't be taken in consideration at all and you'll be asked to have years under the same technology. It didn't only happen to me, I have talked with other people and it is quite a common practice that somebody per example trained in .NET ends up in SQL-only project and later on moved to JavaScript. In general, nobody will track your reviews from previous managers/projects either. - You can be moved to projects or departments where there is no work to do at all. This can be fine if you don't really want to do any work at all, but harmful if you want to learn and get valuable experience. At the same time you can see some interesting projects you could be doing, being outsourced which makes no sense. On the other hand, some departments are put into a lot of pressure and they don't get much credit from the differences of workload. I'm aware as well of some people moved to different projects without their entire consent. - There are a lot of departments that get you assigned to a main project that give you some room to do side projects as well. If it happens that your main project is slow or non-demanding, even if you do a great job with side projects, it is unlikely you will get promoted for that work. In some departments, you have to be the one looking for things to do, listening and being quick to join interesting side projects. - Even though from the management it is said that there are a lot of opportunities to promote, move careers or departments, internal openings are very opaque. There isn’t any list of specific requirements to promote from one level to the next, so it will be left to your manager's choice. I know as well that some people wanting to become principal or manager got blocked from management or got directly rejected in all open internal positions as those spots are usually opened for a specific person. Very valuable people is leaving because the lack of promotions and the lack of proper reasons from the company management in that regard. Speaking with some colleagues, I'm aware as well that some people that get most of the week or all week WFH are being blocked from promotions just because not being in the office, even though it is written in their contracts and it is allowed company wide. - Company policies are written on stone. You'll be asked to be flexible and agile, but the moment you'd have any problems or wanted to review a specific rule that applies to you, it will take forever from HR to do. The company brags constantly to care and listen to their employees, but their actions don't match up. -And last but not least. VERY LOW SALARY and very low bonus. Before they might have been competitive, but now that promotions are blocked for the majority of the people, you can find Software Engineers with 8 -12 years experience that are not being promoted to Senior, Associates with 2 - 3 years experience and so on; so you can check in this very website and decide if the salary is or not fair. As in many companies, you'll get what you negotiate when joining. The bonus is very low for lower levels and almost non-depending on your good/bad performance which can discourage better employees to keep improving.

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Liberty IT Response
9y
Thank you for taking the time to write a review on your time working with us, we appreciate your feedback. Thank you for highlighting the great deal of training that we offer our employees. We pride ourselves in developing the technical and behavioural capabilities of all of our employees. Also, as you know, we also place a significant emphasis on our corporate responsibilities and we are proud to have such a great team of employees committed to serving on our various social, charity, health and wellbeing groups. I am disappointed to read your views on our salary and benefits packages. As we explain at our annual Compensation and Benefits roadshows, an employee’s basic salary is only a part of the overall remuneration we offer. We consider our overall package to be competitive and progressive, offering performance based bonus payments, healthcare, plus flexibility in terms of pension, working hours and many salary sacrifice options. We take care that our salaries compete in the market place and we benchmark our salaries on an annual basis. In relation to the reference to old technologies, it is useful to point out that within Liberty IT many of our systems are of a global scale and our engineers are involved across the full lifecycle shaping and influencing the evolution of these products and their architecture. At this level, it is all about high quality software engineering and therefore I feel more important to people’s careers than exposure to a specific technology. That said, we have a lot of projects that use new and emerging technology and there are opportunities throughout the organisation to move and grow and experience different challenges and experiences. At Liberty IT we are proud of the number of employees who grow and develop their careers with us. In the last year alone 20% of our employee base were promoted through manager nomination/internal recruitment. Our recruitment and promotions policies are published for all to access and the processes are fully transparent. I’m sorry that you won’t be with us to develop your career further and I wish you every success in your new role.

Explore other reviews about Liberty IT

5.0
14 Oct 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great flexibility for work life balance

Cons

Most teams use scrum which consists of lots of meetings

1
5.0
12 Oct 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

A workplace is what you make of it, and I love working in Liberty I.T - they gave me an opportunity to do something I love and I will be grateful forever. Great benefits, super work life balance.

Cons

None that I can think of.

1
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Liberty IT Response
8y
It is great to hear that you are enjoying working with us. Thank you for getting in touch! Regards, Willie
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