I worked at this company for 7 years and witnessed its ups and downs. It used to be a cutting-edge company, a leader in remote work, but over time it started to decline. During my time there, I met many great people and professionals from various fields. Unfortunately, most of them no longer work for the company.
The reason for the decline is twofold:
1. The business model is to acquire dying software products, provide minimal support, and make money from a shrinking customer base. It's important to note that there's no focus on selling good and profitable software.
2. The top management's poor behavior trickles down to all levels of the company. Employees are treated as mere "resources" and their well-being is ignored. They can suddenly duplicate workload without adjusting compensation, switch employees to a different project in a day with a different technology stack and expect the same results within two days time frame. They deceive and manipulate, for example, by saying "shrink to grow" when there's no actual growth. KPIs are always aggressive, and even if you meet them, next quarter they will be increased, without any compensation for sure.
The consequences of this for you as a new hire are unfortunate:
1. You'll mostly work with outdated and irrelevant technologies.
2. The software and codebase you'll be working with are outdated, have poor quality, or are technologically limited. The knowledge transfer process is also lacking, leaving you with a "black box" that nobody knows how to manage.
3. The size of the team is adjusted every quarter according to the shrinking customer base, and because this happens across all projects, they'll let you go instead of reassigning you to another product. They call it "shrink to grow", but it's a lie - there's been no growth in 4 years.
4. The remaining employees are left with an overwhelming workload, but their expectations and compensation remain the same. For example, a product that was once supported by 3 engineers (each was pro in his area, and supported a set of product parts written in c++, Objective-C, C#, java), may suddenly be supported by just one person who is expected to have the same level of knowledge and output for the same compensation.
5. The team environment is hostile. Each new member is a survivor of previous downsizing and views you as a threat. If your performance surpasses theirs, they'll be fired. Professional or emotional support is non-existent, and senior employees often do performance/PR reviews, using subjective reasons to decrease your delivery rate and decline your work.
So, for those who consider joining this company: I strongly advise against anyone joining this company. Unless you're in dire need of money and are willing to be treated poorly, having your brain manipulated and wasted and have your hard work disregarded.
FOR CUSTOMERS of products under the ESW CAPITAL umbrella, my advice: RUN!!! And plan your migration to an alternative product as soon as you hear that your product has been acquired by this company. You will experience declining quality and support, as well as increasing costs if you stay. Because the company business model is to let the product die. So anyway, you will switch, sooner or later.
