Thoughtworks reviews

4.0

79% would recommend to a friend

(4,642 total reviews)
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Mike Sutcliff

79% approve of CEO

57% positive business outlook

Thoughtworks has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 4,642 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Thoughtworks employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Tecnologías de la información industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

5K reviews
3.0
Mar 10, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

ThoughtWorks still has a lot of great and smart people really interested in helping you (specially for women). Depending on the project and client you land on, you'll have a chance to expand your network, experiment working with different industries and technologies at diverse locations across UK (and internationally). Also you'll get to eat for free (of course, it depends where you're working but if you're a consultant out of your usual commute, you can get reimbursed). There is a personal development budget that you can use to get some training and go to conferences. A few interesting events if you are attached to the London office (don't know about Manchester).

Cons

Where do I begin? I've joined as a lateral hire (in TW lingo, this means someone that already had a career before) and spent almost a year trying to understand how TW works and what's the purpose of it all. Is it a non-profit disguised as a software consultancy? Body-shop that sucks less? Roy's little experiment? I left without any clue. First, as a consultant, even if they tell you that there is no manager, you'll be at the mercy of the staffing team, who can then send you to a client/project that can be great or just a body shop. TW has a great office in central London but don't believe the hype. If you are a consultant, you'll be spending most of your time at a client site, dealing with legacy tech, boring people, enterprise culture and usually travelling to less desirable locations across the UK. Your ability to grow and work on interesting things will depend on how good you are in networking and getting noticed (ie, politics). Best projects are kept for the most politically skilled (sorry, introverts). Second, everyone likes to blast how diverse and inclusive TW is and how everyone is able to freely have a discussion up to the CEO but this is only true if you are on the "right" side. TW has a lot of wonderful people, but it also has marxists, social justice warriors, hardcore feminists, LGBT advocates (they are the ones dictating the agenda). If you don't buy into this, you'll have a hard time there. I was more comfortable at a client side than in the London office (I felt no connection with other people there). And the idea to choose a sponsor to help you advance in your career is a joke.

2.0
Apr 23, 2014

Time to look inwards...

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I have spend a great part of my career with Thoughtworks and have spend time in 8-9 different offices of Thoughtworks across different countries. During my tenure I have seen multiple changes however the events/changes that have happened in the last year or so have been detrimental to the foundation of Thoughtworks India office in particular. Few things that are still in tact & good are --> Great place to work as a fresher in the IT industry as the exposure one get's on different aspect of Software development is great. --> Most of the policies are very employee friendly (eg. Leaves, Travel policies, etc...) --> Folks in operation like Finance, Admin, Techops, Recruitment etc... are very efficient however they are hardly appreciated for there effort by the majority (majority being Professional Service folks) --> Lot of talented, honest, friendly, open minded people, however the density of the same is reducing very dramatically in fact in the first quarter of this year there have been huge attrition, unlike earlier were some of these data points used to be shared in all hands. It was not shared up-until I was there. --> A good mix of projects (However not everything is impressive), infact Thoughtworks India for no reason has been dragging some of the engagement where both people on the project & management know that there is no high value delivered for the price charged. --> Flexibility provided to people in need for different reason is great & I have seen & heard many example of this. --> S.T.E.P initiative

Cons

While thinking of writing this review I visited Thoughtworks website and found a list of points under people & culture section in about-us page. So I am going to write some of my thoughts using the same point mentioned in the section with my current assessment of those points. Unfortunately most of the things according to me now are not true anymore, slowly & gradually as Thoughtworks grows in size they are only going to go from bad to worse. Some people from leadership who could have done something about this have left the organization in the recent past & the rest are just playing along, keeping there mouth shut to avoid Mr. Founder's wrath. Let me start sharing my views on the points mentioned on the website "We come to work as ourselves. We enjoy each other’s company. We value honesty and transparency." & "Personal and organizational transparency" --> Off late there is deadly silent on the floor for all topics, people discuss these things in corners or over drinks unlike earlier where people can discuss this in open safe forums. In-fact in one of the all hands when Mr. Founder visited Bangalore office he behaved very immaturely with one of the attendee. Increasing the data that get's shared with the larger set of people is colored and often delayed, so I do not think that people are working as them-self & being honest and transparent with each other. "Appearances and backgrounds aren’t important to us; ideas and doing the right thing are. We abhor and reject discrimination and inequality and promote diversity in all its forms." --> In the recent past in some small group meetings & few All hands conducted by Mr. Founder & his subordinates there were few questions asked regarding people's background in terms of there caste, religion & political preference which I think is very contrary to what is published on the website. By asking such question Mr. Founder has already created a subtle divide in people on the floor, which people have started to feel & talk about in small groups, however no one is finding enough courage to speak about this as this might end in the person quitting or made to quit Thoughtworks. "Do the right thing" --> I have already given few example of how this is not completely true & there are umpteen number of incidence that I can write however that will not solve the problem, having said that there are still pockets of people who are doing the right thing however I am not sure how long they can continue. "Attitude, aptitude and integrity", "Service to others and society over self", "Serve holistic goals over achieving targets", "Intolerant of intolerance" & "No jerks" --> Earlier most people I interacted across the board in all the office I have worked use to feel for the organization, It was like home. However It is no more the case for the majority, infact people are working there because it is very difficult to move away from the comfort zone instead it is easy to keep quite (Passively Aggressive). Some people from a particular SIP project get special attention from Mr. Founder, so they start dominating every one around them in all possible way putting there point of view over everyone else on the project. People who do not really relate with the goal of the project or really understand why a particular decision in the project is been made cannot open up or bring changes as there voices get suppressed, or if they are vociferous they get moved out of the project. If one display's a pro left alignment then everything the person say's will be tolerated, however if the person does not display pro left behavior then she/he will labelled right wing. One thing that Mr. Founder & some of his subordinate need to understand that, most people on the floor do not understand what Left or Right is. As it is topic which most people do not relate. However the organization seems to head in a direction where one need to start behaving like you understand these things & just keep quite. People who use to be the voice against these things & used to talk about the journey have either left or shown doors. One of the core ingredient which made the culture of Thoughtworks special and caused people to do more that what is expected out of them was the sense of belonging with the organization, earlier most people did not treat it as a job however it is disheartening to see how fast it is disappearing because some of those people have left & some who still there are increasing not feeling like doing anything about the current state of things & for majority it is just another job without a direct reporting manager to deal with and ample freedom. I think I am going to take a break here and I hope people who read this review, will think and accordingly make there calls.

1.0
Apr 1, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits are good Sick leave policy

Cons

I worked on one of the biggest client(US Based) in Koramangla office. Work culture is extremely toxic, if you will talk about the problems with HR(Peoples team) or seniors in the team, they will try to manipulate you and make you feel worthless. I worked on this project for 3 months, I asked my TL, PM to change my project but they denied it, no action was taken by then, I was depressed, lost my confidence. then I decided to resign and resigned without any offer in hand, luckily after 15 days, I got an offer from a product-based org. I talked with 2 folks working on the same project, they were in the notice period, I wanted to know why are leaving, those 2 folks replied, this project is killing their personal and mental life by enforcing them to work on something which is not even in their skill set. these 2 folks didn't even complete a year in this company. I told them my story and they told me you are not alone, this project/team is responsible for your mental health and there are many employees like us. I Joined TW with lots of hope but it turned out to be the worse decision in my life. Don't trust these reviews most are fake, reviews written by the diploma students which they give training. these students are good but they behave amateurly, they don't know anything about the work ethics.

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Thoughtworks Response
4y
It's disheartening when we read about experiences that haven't worked out. We however assure you that no reviews are ever forced at Thoughtworks. I wanted to respond personally to some of the points you’ve raised. This sounds like a really frustrating experience, and I’m sorry we didn’t give you a better impression of Thoughtworks. The mental well-being of our employees is of utmost importance to us, and if you're willing to have a deeper conversation around this, so we can fix issues related to the project you've mentioned, we would like to have the opportunity. Please feel free to email me at shirly.evangelin@thoughtworks.com . Wishing you the best, Shirly
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