Liberty IT Reviews

4.1

81% would recommend to a friend

(207 total reviews)

Tony Marron

89% approve of CEO

73% positive business outlook

Liberty IT has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 207 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Liberty IT 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

207 reviews
1.0
9 Oct 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Working from home (yet very limited - depends on manager - it's not easy and straightforward - you can work in US project with guys in US working from home full-time and when you ask: "Can I WFH?" you will get a lot of gibberish from your manager - than you have to be in the office to be "visible" etc.). Travelling to the USA (if you like) Looks good in your CV Good for inexperienced people (graduates) - you will get training Very average pay and benefits (basically not bad, not good). Overall, it is not a real IT company. It's a good start for people with absolutely no experience who are happy to do simple tasks and not complain. If you like to do very little and get ice-creams for every single simple thing then yes - that's a good place to work.

Cons

It is a corporation (go and watch Silicon Valley - it's basically Hooli) No real management (there are obviously managers here but...) Red tape, a lot of red tape. Politics and double standards. Simple, basic projects with either out-dated technology (plenty of legacy code) or over-engineered for no reason. A few project nicknames (given by senior leadership - they can motivate people, can't they): "Technology Graveyard", "Sewage", "Minor Sewage" etc.. You will feel so proud to work in these awesome projects! No career opportunities - there are special people with special careers and there is the rest (again double standards). Brainwashing. Let's start with recruitment process: there is no coding test, you will get a random set of questions (copied and pasted from the Internet). Once you get in, you most likely going to end up in a random place (which may or may not be suited for you ). You may be a programmer with obviously no interests and no knowledge about infrastructure and you can ended up... in server support. Front-end developers are asked to do back-end tasks and vice versa. There is no talent management. You can also join a project that is just approaching its end (management and everyone knows about it), there is no funding, no work, the team is going to be disband soon. You will end up watching online training for weeks with no plans what to do with you. No one is responsible for anything. On the other hand, you may be lucky and join a good project - but there is no guarantee and the "good" projects are scarce. Loads of lies: you will be told about how things are great, you'll get a lot of empty promises, how awesome is the company, you will get brainwashed - so from the outside it looks to be a good place to work - this is only a facade, artificial image created by poor management. Projects are badly managed, no one really tracks your skills or career needs. There are projects with basically no work. People there are sitting writing one line of code in 2, 3 weeks time waiting for another "great" opportunity. Most of the technology here is out-dated. There are obviously buzzwords used all the time: we are IT (not really), we are innovative (yeah right :) ), cloud, docker, agile, AWS and so on but the actual projects don't come near anything new. For example, there was a company-wide GIT initiative - yet most of the projects are using SVN or even CVS (yes - you read that right)! All new project should be GIT based, yet very few are. If you ask why - don't do it - you are on the blacklist. Another good example how bad the company is IT-wise, is the actual exit interview process. All people leaving are asked to fill in a form where you put your name, job role, salary, starting and leaving dates etc - all information IS already in the same system! What's the point? Duplication of manual work and lack of automation is astonishing! If you ask why, you get usual blah, blah, blah... lies and silly excuses. And that's just the top of an iceberg. Look at the LIT website - it is very basic - like all projects inside the company. There are 500+ employees and only 2 or 3 web designers. There are people who have skills, knowledge, and passion (no doubt about it) to do or even learn web design yet... they are asked to sit in the silly, retarded projects instead of utilising their time and skills to build something cool and state-of-the-art. The actual design work has been out-sourced and then people are being told either they don't have skills (yes the management "knows" how to motivate people) or you have to focus on doing some "real" (read: worthless) project work (which actually doesn't consume whole day). Lies, lies, lies and empty promises all the time. Did I mention that this super-awesome, great place to work (irony again) so-called IT company is giving low-spec, locked-down, Windows 32bit laptops? There are no real career opportunities. Overall, you can read management lies about X number of people getting promoted each year. Well yes, you can have plenty of graduates who get promoted to engineers. Then people get stuck in their projects for a couple of years and... you will get a few people that for no reason get promoted. Same goes with the bonus each year and pay increases. Double standards everywhere. If you apply for internal job, you have to go through recruitment process and even if you are trying to get the same job in a row, with the same specs - one time all requirements are solid - no exceptions, while the other time all rules can be quickly adjusted so "the right" candidate will get the job. If you complain, you will end up on the blacklist, management will tell you a lot of lies (again) and basically, you will go back to your out-dated project - while the special people will get the better work obviously. Whole career progress is unfair and not transparent. There are plenty of people who work hard and get no recognition. Look at the most recent reviews of LIT - there is definitely a trend emerging there. Good people are getting pissed off and move on. LIT is very disappointing.

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Liberty IT Response
8y
I was disappointed to read your review as we have an open door policy across Liberty IT and we seek feedback, positive and negative, through roundtables, skip level meetings, LIT Engages, my Connections and 1-1s to enable us to keep a finger on the pulse of the organisation and employees’ views and opinions. As part of our ongoing Organisational Transformation, we have launched a set of values for all of us to act out in our daily lives at work: show you care, share the spotlight, appetite to learn and be approachable. These values were created and launched by a group of employees so I am confident that we will live up to them and hold each other to account if not. I believe that this environment will allow employees to thrive during their time with us – we are aiming for a culture of empowerment and autonomy and this is a great first step towards that. I am sorry that you feel your time with us was not positive and wish you every success in your new role. Regards Cathy
1.0
24 Dec 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Reasonable benefits, central location, bright spacious offices, flexible working all the standard stuff a company needs to offer to attract & retain in demand software development skills.

Cons

This place is attempting to transform but it is not pretty. It is quite clear that HR now run this company assisted by a few hired hands. Their remit you would expect is people but it now extends to everything. They have become experts in IT, communications, transformation and mind games! The constant drip of do not say objectionable things on Glass Door is but one example. They are working on the vulnerable, the weak, those that lack confidence and influencing them to say nice things. Many of the positive reviews come after a batch of bad ones (look for yourself) and are so over the top they are either crafted by HR or some poor souls thinking they can impress. You are being used! Think about who put the suggestion in your head and is this good for me or them. So after it being suggested I write a "positive" review I instead decided to write an accurate one! Old technologies, very top down control orientated senior management, cliques if you are not in you will not win, average pay (very average), questionable promotion policy if applied at all.

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Liberty IT Response
8y
As you know, I am committed to providing a supportive and nurturing environment to allow our family of engineers to be successful and the role of the LIT leadership team is to support me to do this. I am therefore disappointed to read your comments and ask that you take the time to talk to me personally so that I can properly understand your perspective. Kind regards, Willie
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.
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