Pros
The staff working on the floor are talented, helpful, and good to be around with a good camaraderie. It's a decent learning environment for tech staff - Everything is constantly on fire, so you'll get a chance to learn enough to pitch in. I really like Leeds!
Cons
Webanywhere provides a bad service to its customers. There’s not an employee in the company that doesn’t know it and isn’t miserable about it. It could be fixed with some time and the right choices, but the CEO refuses to listen to the people on his team that have the know how to make it better. The software we provide is pushed out the door long before it’s ready, and then doesn’t get updated because the devs have been moved onto one of an endless series of vanity projects that make no money. (Google soundbranch, the app no one ever wanted). The products are in a shocking state, and the customers notice. Technical innovations are rejected outright because of attachment to old methods, and the QA procedure is barebones, under the same pressure to rush things out the door as the developers. Since the product is poor, the CEOs answer is just to throw wave after wave of salespeople at customers, putting them under such pressure that they quit in droves. Without stable products or new features, it’s an uphill struggle to make a sale. Targets get raised to unrealistic numbers, and when they don't get hit, sales staff get bullied and mocked in front of the office. It's just not OK to stand kids in their first jobs in front of the whole office and tell them they should feel ashamed they didn't top the table. The tech support team is desperately understaffed and spend their entire time firefighting. No time for training. Customers line up to complain because there the fixes aren't coming because critical issues don't seem to warrant dev time. Frankly it's a miracle you haven't lost more. Finally, some quick words on the CEOs management style. It’s deeply unpleasant, reminiscent of Trump, complete with the defensiveness, lashing out and self promotion. Briefings are just adverts for a company you already work for, complete with slogans. He tries to inspire, but instead of keen insight, vision, or encouragement it’s just endless self aggrandising. It’s buzzwords reeled off from the latest self help management book, an endless retelling of how he bootstrapped the company from nothing, and reciting the trite company values over and over as if saying that the company is Fun 100 times would make it true. He talks about living the values being the key to advancement in the company. There is no advancement in the company unless you are incredibly important and try to quit. He micromanages in the extreme, overriding ideas despite not knowing what any department really does or needs. It sucks, guys. Please note: this unprofessional approach doesn’t extend to the rest of the company. Wherever you look, it’s people pulling together to weather his storm. It’s pretty nice, really.