Pros
Great colleagues Ability to work remotely
Kontras
Code Institute is a chronically mismanaged company. Reading through the past reviews here, this seems to have been plainly evident to everyone but the board of directors. Issues were always papered over or pushed down the road, never fixed, and now the house of cards is crashing down. The company is struggling and mass layoffs are being carried out for the second time in just six months. About 20 staff members were cut in the first round, and indications are that at least 40 more will be cut in this round. All told, that's more than 60% of the company's workforce gone. I find it impossible to lay blame at the feet of anyone other than the board and CEO. The company has time and again failed to diversify their revenue streams sufficiently to account for one or more drying up, and the CEO has been placing all blame on external sources rather than himself, and patronisingly lectures employees on the basics of economics any time they ask for an explanation instead of addressing their actual questions. The arrogance of senior management would be difficult to overstate. In February, the monthly company update meeting, in which the board are meant to communicate the health of the company to staff, consisted almost entirely of the CEO explaining the concept of timeliness to his staff, and that they should profusely apologise to their colleagues if they are even a single minute late for a meeting. The fact that grown adults were being lectured on this is quite frankly shocking, especially given the fact that company was simultaneously nosediving. Unsurprisingly, the members of the senior leadership team who are most responsible for the current situation aren't the ones to suffer, with the vast majority of laid off staff being low level. Unfortunately, the board's cluelessness does not merely extend to finances. It is clear that they have no real clue about technology either. Staff have been officially informed of plans to heavily invest in generative AI, and unambiguously told that this will replace various support and content development roles. The board have made it clear that they see AI as a silver bullet that will help advance the business by replacing various humans, and seem entirely blind to its obvious limitations, or the fact that customers dislike being fobbed off to AI or consuming AI generated content. I simply do not see a future for Code Institute following this round of layoffs, as I do not believe there will be enough skilled staff members remaining to deliver obligations to customers. The primary selling point of Code Institute's content was dedicated technical support provided by experts; with all these experts being let go, the company has no edge. They are not replaceable by AI, despite what management seem to think.