Pros
Some of the pros can also be cons depending on your stage of life or personality. I consider myself a strong self-starter and go-getter. I have no trouble putting extra effort and time to make a project deadline and get things right and have done so for a number of years for FAST. Anyhow, here are some bullet points of Pros from my time so far. - Paid Overtime (in the tech world most people do more than 40 hours so getting paid for it is in my opinion the right thing to do) - Direct/Reporting Supervisors in my experience have been great. In general, they seem to care about my well-being, career development, and our clients. - Product and Implementation is still by far the best in our industry. Always on-time, on-budget is rare in our industry (we should focus on this and not get distracted. More regarding this below) NOTE: I did NOT say our product is trendy or flashy, or that there isn't room for major improvements on the product, but it does perform its job very well all things considered. Cannot say this about all other large software products. - Work variety (specifically the Tech Team role) - I love that I get to dabble in many different areas, even daily. For example, I get to learn and do DBA related tasks, writing code to automate manual tasks, gain base-level networking and storage concepts. Train and manage new Techs and more. And not uncommonly do some of all these things in one day. I'm not a head-down coder usually so I like this style. - Get to work with many top notch colleagues. Dedicated and smart. - Bonus/extra year end pay (more in other sections on this) - High expectations company - FAST is not a "mail it in company" and you will not like it here if that is your style. I consider this a pro (there can be a negative side to this as well). - Decent amount of vacation - Especially after 5 years of service. ~ 4 weeks a year. - FAST Pause - which is essentially a month sabbatical one is eligible for after 4 years of service. - Good sick time if needed. ~ 2 weeks. - Good health care overall.
Cons
- Very high expectations + 24/7h On-Call role vs Pay/Appreciation - I am truly grateful for overall great benefits, good pay and being able to live well, many would be envious. However, this is a business and the market and world are changing quickly. The departure of many of good employees this past year is hitting us hard and especially FASTies in my role and experience level, since more work falls back to less people. Although this is job security, the quality of work/life balance has shifted a lot recently and becomes increasingly difficult to consider it worth it. - Too many hours - Goes with the above point on losing many experienced people and it is the flip-side of paid overtime; it becomes expected and under-appreciated. I have sacrificed many weekends, holidays and nights of sleep to bring FAST/Client success and do my job well. - Vacation can be difficult to take sometimes depending on project and cycle. Not going to rail too hard on this since many jobs in tech are this way. - Career development/Technical training opportunities lacking for non-FAST areas. It could be an invaluable investment. Not asking to be spoon-fed by the way, just encourage and open a few doors. We could use more people knowledgeable about networking, security and other specialties. I spend time learning through our work and some on the side, but there are only so many hours in a day. I think adjustments in this area would be one element in helping retain and attract people. There have been a few great internal DBA trainings though. SIDE-RANT: Regarding our product, I'm going to contradict other reviewers who complain about the lack or style of new-hire training. Two-three weeks of any technical training in a complex product is not meant to make you an expert. Chillout. Dig through the processes/code and learn the system. Reach out to your peers, then team manager, then architect and tech (ect) when needed (that is partially why we are here). Be respectful of everyone's time and do your research first. If you are on site with unhelpful peers/leads, I am truly sorry, this has not been my experience generally. Remember, problem solving skills ARE transferrable to most jobs. - Performance Reviews - Hasn't really been a con for me as I have always been well rated and in turn generally got good raises from my perspective. However, I cannot quite put my finger on it, but there's something weird about how we approach reviews. I've filled out many reviews, of myself and others and I do not like the scale or at least the way it has been communicated to me about how it should be used. It has been my impression that one has to essentially save the project from failure and be a superhuman positive person and all these other things to get a top-notch review, otherwise you're just being soft and nice.... I don't don't think this is a healthy way of thinking or encouraging retention. - WFH (Work From Home) - Before 2020/2021 when we (and the whole tech world) went remote, FAST did not allow the modern concept of remote work at all (few exceptions). Now there is technically a policy in place to allow some WFH in a very restricted manner. For me, I'm an office person, easier to keep home and work separation, but the event of this official policy has triggered me to have an opinion. More on this below. So if WFH is a must for you or need it as an option, then FAST is not currently a good fit. - Regular bonuses/extra year-end payouts from rewards account (wait you're thinking this is a Pro, yes it is, as mentioned above) - Nice to have extra pay, I would be silly and ungrateful to complain about that. However, the mechanism to trigger an increase in the bonus/rewards account, is unnecessarily murky and confusing. I think this is project manager/director/region dependent, which would then be a different issue. (I don't like complaining about extra money, I also don't like confusion on important matters if it can be helped.)
