Aquatic Informatics Software Developer reviews

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(3 total reviews)

Edward Quilty

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3 reviews
5.0
3 Sept 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I have worked at Aquatic full-time for 5 years. I have worked with really great developers in my time there and learned a lot from them. I became a much better developer thanks to them. The work atmosphere is really good. I had really great colleagues who supported each other. People were always respectful of others opinions and open to change their own opinions when faced with good arguments. There were friday afternoon drinks, lunch-time card games and lot's of foosball matches. The management is very open about all the numbers. Employees have insight into the financials and the different leads that are being explored. (Although, personally I never paid much attention) Releases and deadlines are very well managed. In my teams there were almost never times where people had to work overtime to wrap up a release (I think this was different for other teams). I had a pretty good work-life-balance there. I prioritized being home with my kids in the evening and always left at 4pm and that was never a problem. It's easy to identify with the company mission which is to make environmental data more accessible and more useful. Monthly meetings with free lunch.

Cons

They started some kind of initiative with KPIs that are tracked and shown on screens around the company. I understand the idea behind it, but it always seemed totally unrelated and a distraction to my work as a developer.

1.0
4 Aug 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great management staff. Great location. Great office. Great HR team. Great training team.

Cons

A handful of people in the company are overly sensitive, overly anal retentive, closed minded, high maintenance and severely controlling. This wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for the fact that they have somehow became the lead developers and one is a project manager. It also wouldn't be so bad if their decisions were based on well informed facts, but instead they are based on personal bias and in the project manager's case, fear for her job. There are a lot of good people here, but we all have to bow to the will of the few. Sad really because the company is hand cuffed into doing things very inefficiently simply because of a few self declared experts. I often see good people with good ideas frustrated by these individuals. The new software is just a rewrite of the old software. Same poor design with a few minor improvements. Not much has changed. A so called "RESTful" system that is never at REST. Too many messages being sent around. In a few months when the software is released they will have to let a lot of people go because there won't be enough work for everyone. Also, the place is too quiet, people get mad if you talk. Oh well, time to leave.

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Aquatic Informatics Response
10y
We do have a great location, leadership and office. We definitely agree there - but we are sorry and surprised to see your “Cons” comments as they are very inconsistent with the experience and opinions of the vast majority of the team. But clearly your experience has been different and we’d really like to find out why and see if we can help. Have you talked about your concerns with someone within AI? If not, we’d really encourage you to do so. We aren’t being controlled by one or two individuals. Scrum teams do their own solution designs and decide how much they can get into each release. Those of us on scrum teams challenge each other and try to let the best ideas bubble up. It is usually the person with the most knowledge about a topic that influences a given decision most – not the person with a particular title or the loudest voice. Yes, we have strong opinions, and some loud voices – but if they don’t hold up under scrutiny, their ideas don’t get implemented. We are a flat organization. We feel empowered to come up with our own ideas and make decisions. At the same time, we want others to find flaws in our ideas and our work – before our customers do. We do this by encouraging everyone to review and constructively criticize our work. This does cause creative tension at times – but we think this is the best way to continuously improve the value and quality of our individual work and our products. Regarding our job security – we always have more customer wishes and opportunities than we can possibly tackle. Our business is forecasted to continue its rapid growth. We are hiring!

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