RTS Labs Reviews

I used to brag about my job. I'd tell friends and family about the "llama parties" and other company morale building events we did. And then key C-Suite people started leaving (that were leading those efforts) and from there the company became unrecognizable. As of this date, the company has had 2 lay offs in 6 months. The CEO is running the company into the ground with his unhinged behavior. He'll go on tangents about how the company is failing because no one wants to work. Because the company has been bleeding people (and money) for months, folks are often asked to do roles well outside of stretching. POs or QA people are suddenly customer service and doing sales, often alone, and with no training. Additionally, all personal development time and budget was eliminated but the entire company was asked to become AI experts overnight. The company wastes so much time reporting the same updates over and over in different meetings because the CEO doesn't show up to meetings, or if he does, he'll ramble and derail the agenda. And because it's a flat structure (ie, CEO is control freak) no decisions can ever be made without him because he refuses to delegate. He hired a personal assistant but then only trusts her with ordering lunch for the office or setting up meetings. Also because it's a flat structure there's NO ROOM for career growth. You'll remain stunted, underappreciated and overworked. There's also no work life balance. If you're asked to step out of your original role and assist with sales or other efforts the CEO has his mind on, you'll get calls and texts at all hours after work. With the work life balance being non existent, you'd think you'd be able to use PTO as a reprieve. Incorrect. PTO has been used as a weapon. They will tell people they can't take time off. Or call you while you're on PTO. OR LITERALLY BERATE YOU when you return for using your PTO. If you're a dev, you MIGHT get to escape some of the above. But there's no onboarding or training. You're assigned mentors but everyone is so overworked they don't have time to mentor you. There's no processes or procedures in place. EVERY PROJECT AND CLIENT is different. Because they're all "friends" of the CEO to some varying levels. You'll get calls in the middle of the night for "fires" that definitely aren't fires. Please. Don't work here. I promise, it's not worth it.

The owner/CEO has and cultivates something of a cult of personality. Everyone spends significant effort trying to please him (and I'm not sure many people realize it). This is partly a result of RTS's recruitment, interview and retention practices. You should know that this cult of personality exists. If you are comfortable "sucking up" and either appearing busy or avoiding the appearance of any problems, at least from the CEO's perspective, you'll be okay; suck up extra if you want to get ahead. Otherwise, just avoid this place. If you anger the CEO, prepare for a very brutal and public excoriation without warning. The project management methodologies are also pretty lousy. Not the worst I've seen in the industry, but fairly poor. The main project manager (at least when I was there a while ago) seems to be more concerned with making Costco trips, erecting Christmas trees and planning office parties rather than being an effective PM. You may be assigned to a project for which you don't have the requisite skills or expertise, and you will be blamed for the resulting failure. Inefficiency is something of a problem. The office is organized as one giant open space, with Ikea tables set up as desks. This is fairly common in the industry, and is bad. RTS was foolish to emulate it. The time entry system is also awful. RTS uses a system called TeamWork, which has multiple bugs and just a user-hostile user interface. Prepare to spend a lot of time being frustrated at this software. (RTS originally used Harvest for time entry, but couldn't justify the modest cost and so shifted to TeamWork.) Most of the people are quite good, but there are a few key curmudgeons who more or less reject any ideas they haven't thought of. Since the company has a cult of personality, this is fairly problematic. Prepare to appease them along with the CEO. Finally, this place has a *massively* overinflated estimate of its importance. As it grows, RTS is becoming more of a run-of-the-mill Java consulting shop (with some .NET thrown in just for fun!), but to hear the owner describe it, they're an innovative, cutting-edge company. The owner appears to believe in his own propaganda Overall, it's a pretty lousy place. It's really not the worst place I've worked, but it could be a lot better. Once you dig below the surface, you'll find that working to make a relatively impulsive and emotional person happy is not fulfilling.