WorldFirst Reviews

Pros

The business is ambitious and growing rapidly WorldFirst is building a high performing culture with a focus on accountability The product is undergoing significant investment and the ability to offer transparent pricing in a historically opaque industry is enabling WorldFirst have invested in career development and personal development by bringing external training such as the Accsellerate Program Strategy communication now happen regularly to update the team on progress towards our goals

Cons

Challanging workload and tough deadlines at times

Pros

salary somewhat in market range, but a lot of companies pay more benefits industry-standard 25days sick days in finance you would expect way better than a few sick days other options is not a benefit, but a law. pension is deducted after tax, so you have to bother to fill tax return to get your 20% or 40% back.

Cons

a lot of people left, since acquisition, I got the impression that 1/3 of staff left a business I notice colleagues under a lot of stress Sometimes I struggle to see sense in some of the decisions I am not sure if anything can be changed, without a big management reshuffle on all levels use alternatives of tools, which the western world even heard.

Pros

People and culture were the best thing about it. Good benefits too. But the culture drastically changed the moment Ant group purchased, despite the CEO's famous words at the time. Which was nothing will change.

Cons

As a more senior member I got to see exactly the 'politics' at play. Despite the CEO at the time calling a company wide meeting and speaking to the entire workforce about how the buyout will benefit everyone and nothing will change...everything did. The conversations with the parent company were falling on deaf ears, our rights were being diminished in front of our eyes, and anyone who tried to help the parent group understand were seen as as committing treason against the new nanny state. HR conversations became less human, and more directive. No wonder most of the management left. Only those willing to get in line and dress in uniform were given respect, or rather the reigns given there was a tight leash in place. Some of the conversations were not even conversation by the time I decided to leave. They were just demands. The way you talk, the way you work, what tools to use, what information you must share. The question is, is Worldfirst a bad place to work for? I don't know. I worked there a few years ago. But what I can say is, when I joined, Worldfirst were fun, vibrant and really believed in people first. We worked hard to achieve a vision that the management team had. They are not that anymore. When I left the culture already became toxic. Change always brings difficulties and if managed properly can be beneficial if not perfect. In this case, the CEO stood and made a commitment under the bright lights, and it was just not true. Everything changed from the moment he said nothing would. That alone probably tells you what Worldfirst has become.

Pros

Some of the people are nice

Cons

The take over by Ant Fin has spoilt the ability of UK based employees to contribute in a meaningful way

Pros

Breakfasts, Friday drinks and sweet trolley

Cons

Hell on earth since Chinese takeover can't wait to escape and abandon ship

Pros

Before everyone left, they had decent people who were competent at their roles. The offices are nice. The technologies we used to work on were diverse and interesting. I learned a lot there.

Cons

Initially Worldfirst was a reasonable company to work for. They seemed to care about their staff. It was an inviting place to work in. There were smiling unicorns and rainbows, with fluffy bunny rabbits Morris-dancing in the meeting rooms. Soon after, the Darkness came. The CEO - consumed with glitter and greed - sold (out) the company to a behemoth Chinese company. This company was known to treat their employees like commodities. Unsurprisingly, we all became commodities. We were told that there would be little change. "Our values are the same", chortled the new CEO as he sat on his throne of yuan. "Our values are the same", we all replied in unison. But our values were not the same. They were very different. Within 12 months, the rainbows wilted, the unicorns stopped smiling, and the disheartened, fluffy bunny rabbits ran off with our 80" 4K LED screens. We began suffocating under the new regime. Accosted with continual performance reviews, mandatory form-filling, mandatory meetings about performance reviews and form-filling, mandatory internal compliance exams and optional-but-not-if-you-value-your-job re-education training. Choices were taken away from us, "for the greater good". My Linux laptop was torn from my arms. "It's not secure", they chanted whilst staring at me with soulless eyes. "It's not secure", I repeated - the irony wasted on them. They nodded and gave me a MacBook Pro. It was riddled with bloated spyware, bringing the laptop to its knees. I stayed quiet. We were no longer allowed to use Slack and Outlook. It's not secure, they said. Instead, we had to use their home-grown, Pound-Stretcher alternatives. Every word I typed, every sad-face emoji I tapped, they were watching me. No one smiled anymore. No one talked anymore. We became soulless machines. Any complaints to the new CEO were stonewalled. He frowned and shook his head, whilst an elephant casually sauntered across the room behind him. Eventually, people from all departments and positions began to leave in swarms. Originally our department had four tribe leads. By the time I left, there was only one remaining. The CTO had left, a couple of his deputies had left. Several team leads had left. A dozen or so senior developers/devops had left. All of our business analysts were made redundant. For the greater good. Unfortunately, there is no Hollywood ending. Rumour has it that the unicorns have spiralled into hard substance abuse; feeding their habits by mugging any passing scrum masters or agile coaches. Meanwhile, the fluffy bunny rabbits - seeing a gap in the market - cross trained as scrum masters and agile coaches.

Pros

Potential to scale, good pay, free breakfast, some nice people

Cons

Lack of trust, management in an echo chamber, inexperienced management, unreasonable targets, using performance improvements as an excuse to bring in command control structures, silos..