A colourful place for people who are indifferent
Pros
Freelancer is a relatively good company that offers a good experience for most people. There’s a lot that will satisfy you, whether it is your first job, or your tenth, or you’re just looking for a change. You’re generally allowed freedom to make suggestions and work on what you like. Freelancer employs only the best people – very skilled, talented and likeable. You will generally work with a lot of like-minded people, whether you are a manager or an engineer. The Sydney office is lovely. Work is at open desks in product teams, most of which follow the scrum/agile method. There is an entertainment area with a handful of large screens for presentations, a disco ball, a few too many Philips Hue lights and a grand piano. There are a lot of comfortable couches to sit on around the office, and a small room to play some FIFA if you like. There is a ping pong table, obviously – pretty much mandatory for any technology company. The entertainment area is home to weekly town hall meetings where employees also gather for free lunch every Friday. There are often “tech talks” by some of the employees, which can give you some insight into what other product teams are up to. They are video recorded for later viewing. Perks include free drinks, Friday lunch, gym membership, lots of events and meetups.
Cons
A few adjectives to sum up the cons would be: stubborn, heartless, messy, uncomfortable. The company lacks a solid HR department. There is a lot of favouritism and a cliquey smell from a lot of the people in management. People get noticed by doing things just to please others. During my employment, not much was done to improve matters of discrimination, even though people voiced their opinion. Things were a bit disorganised and some serious issues were not addressed straight away. The CEO gets the final say a lot of the time. A lot of employees had to support their opinion, no matter how much research they did or how technically skilled they were. They rarely had their efforts recognised and were seen as easily replaceable. Most people want to go home and forget about work, but the company works around the clock. It may bleed quietly into your personal time. There is always work to be done. The company is fast-paced, changes are pushed every day – most people like that, some people don’t. It’s hard to count how many times an employee left or was dismissed for little good reason. The company is sickeningly good at hiding an employee’s departure, but word often got around quickly. The salary is alright, but doesn’t seem to meet industry standards. Be prepared to receive very little, if any, pay rise. It seemed that only people who were liked were rewarded in such a way. Generally, if you believe a facade of perks will make your sub par income more bearable, then you won’t have any trouble fitting in.