Pros
The name looks good on your CV. I got to work with the most talented developers I have ever encountered in my career. They were all really generous with their time, giving me advice on how to improve my code. I'm so grateful for everything I learned from them. If you're lucky, you get to develop some interesting and challenging products. You get exposure to new technologies. The weekly showcase is a good way to learn what other teams are building and the tools they're using.
Cons
Staff turnover. Paddy Power hires great .Net developers, only to lose them within a very short space of time. Over the last few months, almost all the senior developers on my team quit. This leads to a massive loss of knowledge and poor team morale. If you're not lucky, you could be stuck developing some awful VBA / WinForms application, gaining no valuable skills, and slowly descending into madness, No dedicated support team for legacy .Net applications. The .Net developers on my team are required to work three different support rotas in addition to their regular project work. This involves a week long 9-6 rota, a Saturday rota, and a week long out of hours on-call rota (for minimal compensation). There is a large number of VBA and C# WinForm applications to support, most of which are completely unfamiliar, poorly written and difficult to debug. Documentation is minimal or non-existent. The support work is handled casually, by email, and with none of the tools you would expect a support team to employ. It's difficult, frustrating, chaotic and a constant source of stress. There seems to be no interest from management in creating a dedicated .Net support team. Micro-management and obsession with process. There is a disturbing, dogmatic insistence on following lean / Kanban processes at Paddy Power, even when this proves to be unsuitable for the project. Expect frequent attempts to brainwash you on the merits of Kanban, as well as a constant grilling on whether or not your team is working as quickly as it possibly can. I often felt that management didn't care if my code was a horrible, unmaintainable mess, so long as I followed Kanban principles to create it. Fortunately the developers are passionate about the quality of the products so this does not happen. Politics. At Paddy Power, it's not what you know that counts, it's who you know. My manager was constantly emphasizing the importance of "visibility" to me. Indeed, I was given a poor performance review on the basis of not being visible enough (despite being assured that the code that I developed was perfectly acceptable). Some developers may thrive in this ego-driven environment, but I place a higher value on the quality and maintainability of my code, than on my profile within the organisation. Several other developers and testers, highly skilled and passionate about their work, related the same concerns to me so it seems to be a widespread problem. Paddy Power needs to learn to put substance ahead of style and to give credit where it's due. Constant change / lack of job security. In the last twelve months, there was a re-organisation, followed by a merger with Betfair, and subsequent re-organisation (again). Staff have been advised that there will be redundancies in the coming weeks. Inconsistent working conditions. My department consisted of both Java and .Net developers. The .Net developers are required to work longer hours (9-6 rather than 9-5), and consequently are paid less than their Java-based colleagues. I don't think there's much of a future for .Net development at Paddy Power in terms of new development / interesting projects. They seem much more committed to Java / Scala.
