Pros
Free sandwich lunch on Wednesdays
Kontras
Retention and workplace stability - High turnover including multiple senior hires leaving in just 2-3 weeks after joining due to the rigid hybrid policy of 4 days office a week. - Just after the announcement of there being no bonus or payrises, one senior employee who was one of the most popular people in the office, resigned abruptly by shouting the "F this company" and then stormed out of the office. This was followed by an all-staff meeting to address the situation where the CEO gave a vague reason for the employee leaving. Probation and performance management - I received no negative feedback during my initial probation period despite regularly asking for feedback. - At my probation review, probation was unexpectedly extended by one month based on concerns that had never previously been raised. - Weekly check-ins during the extension period were consistently positive, and I was told my performance had improved and that everything was on track. - I was terminated shortly afterward, with leadership citing productivity concerns that had not been communicated during the check-ins. - Decisions appeared to be made centrally by senior leadership regardless of feedback from direct managers. Productivity measurement - Productivity was evaluated using metrics such as commit counts, pull request timelines, and lines of code without clear context or agreed expectations. - Large or complex reviews were sometimes interpreted as slow delivery rather than thorough work. I was told my output was too slow because it took me a few days to close a pull request of over 10K lines of code that had 10+ comments made by an AI agent spanning the whole codebase, and not just my code. Hybrid working policy and fairness - The company requires 4 days per week in the office for staff. - Some employees had special arrangements allowing fewer in-office days, including fully remote roles, while others were required to attend 4 days office per week, even if most of their team was fully remote. - Flexible working requests was a privilege only given to those who had 6 months of service. - When I made a request for reduced in-office days based on the nature of my role and limited in-person collaboration requirements as most of my team was fully remote, the request was treated as a red flag during my probation review. - Leadership later announced a company-wide review of the hybrid policy that was expected to conclude within a 3 month timeframe, but no changes were implemented after several months. Office environment and facilities - The office has limited meeting space (4 meeting rooms with 3 of them only having a capacity for 3-4 people), resulting in most meetings being conducted on video calls despite staff being physically present in the office sitting right next to each other. - The open-plan workspace is frequently noisy, making calls and collaboration difficult. In almost every meeting someone would say "sorry about the background noise" or "can you hear me?". - On several occasions, meetings required participants to stand for up to an hour due to lack of seating. - Staff complained about lack of meeting rooms but were told to question if they really needed a meeting room for meetings or could they hold meetings in communal areas such as the sofas in the lobby due to limited room availability. - Maintenance and hygiene concerns were reported through internal surveys, including cleanliness issues and building condition concerns. There was mold on the office ceiling for months and the kitchen would often not have any clean cutlery to eat lunch with. - Despite multiple new engineering hires saying they prefer working on a macbook when asked their preference, they were still given cheaper Windows laptops to cut costs, which wasted several days troubleshooting project environments more suited for macOS which was being used by most of the engineers. Parking and commuting - There were insufficient parking spaces for staff, leading to congestion, double parking, and delays finding available spaces. - During my first week, the car park was full one day so after trying to find a space for an hour, I asked management what should I do and was told if the car park is full you can park in the commercial car park across the road as they have no ANPR cameras so you won't get fined for parking in the other company's car park and other employees have been doing it without issues so far. - Alternative options suggested included paying around £10 per day to use the train station's car park. - Punctuality expectations did not appear to account for these logistical challenges. If you arrived at the office on time but took 5 minutes to find a parking space and therefore were at your desk 5 minutes later, it would be considered as your fault for being late even though it's the company's lack of facilities that caused it. A member of senior leadership said even though their commute is under an hour they leave their home extra early at 7am just to arrive early enough before the car park gets full. - Leadership seem to sit near the office door and clock watch by noting what time employees come in and sit at their desk, despite saying they're not clock watchers but for optics you need to be at your desk on time. Annual leave and flexibility - The company required one week of notice per day of annual leave requested. - Requests for short-notice leave required detailed justification and management approval. - Shortly after requesting annual leave for the first time since I joined to support my spouse’s hospital appointments, my employment was terminated during probation despite receiving positive feedback in the preceding check-in. Employee benefits, compensation, and career progression - Compensation was below market rate for engineering roles, even for Reading's standards. - Benefits were limited to statutory minimum requirements, including pension and parental leave. Despite multiple complaints about this in company surveys, senior leadership deflected them by saying the company follows the UK government guidelines and at least you get something here, whereas in USA employees don't even get anything. - Employee feedback in surveys requesting improvements to benefits and working conditions did not result in any changes and were just met with vague empty promises with senior leadership saying increasing benefits increases our cost base so we cannot afford to do it at this time. - Career progression pathways were described by leadership as ad hoc rather than structured, with advancement dependent on business needs or timing rather than defined criteria. - Examples given by leadership suggested progression could require taking on responsibilities outside one's core role rather than achieving performance milestones within the role. - Career goal-setting processes were introduced, but it was communicated that achieving those goals would not necessarily translate into promotion or pay increases, so ended up being pointless admin that no one bothered doing. - The company communicated financial constraints that led to canceled bonuses, paused salary increases, and 5% of the workforce being made redundant.