Pros
Management is largely hands off and gives a lot of autonomy to developers. Getting work done on time and meeting ARGO's not hard to meet standards will keep management off your back unless a customer is involved. Then, I have to say good luck, buddy. Developers with goals to quickly become a tech lead or project manager at least in role will find ARGO very desirable despite only potentially being recognized for their efforts. Leadership experience is invaluable regardless if your salary currently reflects it or not. ARGO openly admits that there is a HR disaster and that employees are leaving faster than an exodus out of Egypt during biblical times now that the economy is recovering. ARGO has attempted to do a lot with hiring an armada of HR specialists and drones while also revamping an employee management program. Like another poster stated, ARGO is rolling in money, and constantly reports double digit growths despite having high turnover and mediocre quality products. Strong financials should translate to stability. I don't think anyone has to worry about ARGO going out of business any time soon. Somewhat high stability and amazing revenue growth. ARGO's sales team is amazingly talented, and if you have a chance to work with their team; I would go for it. They line up so much new business and constantly identify new untapped markets that it is no wonder that ARGO has so many new products and not enough people to staff them with. They are also unbelievably knowledgeable, well connected, and skilled at selling to banks. Open door policy. You can ask anyone for anything even if you don't know enough to ask the right questions or know who is the right person to ask. Heck, go knock on the CEO's door if you are an entry level employee; heck, you may even be rewarded for doing so. "Bravery" is actually something they look for in promoting their developers. It's right in the docs if you don't believe me. High turnover creates a lot of opportunity. Relatively junior employees get saddled with more responsibility once their superiors leave and if they call pull it off they can fast track in the company. Depending on the type of person you are I suppose this could not be a positive. If you are an ambitious/passionate opportunity seeker who wants to sacrifice their social life and time to jump start their career by becoming a tech lead in 2-3 year or a PM in 4-5, ARGO is your heaven. I personally know many people who did the same. If you are a responsibility/power addict ARGO will satisfy your soul as long as money isn't the main motivator for you. Heck, I have known defacto tech lead with 1-2 years total experience that are paid the same and have the same title as their peers. I do admit you will gain very valuable experience that's transferable if you do manage to pull this off. Low involuntary turnover. Firings are at a rarity at ARGO for devs. Most of them are aimed at PMs, tech leads, and the occassional programmer who angers the customer.
Cons
Low pay. Many leave ARGO to 20-30% more money elsewhere. If you are practically acting like a PM or tech lead this pay difference is probably even worse. Meager compensation intensifies once you start to make it to the 5-7 year mark in your career. Certain technologies are non-transferable and proprietary, I strongly disagree that you can't learn any transferable tech skills at ARGO. If you really want them aim to get on the Software Engineer team/track, I know several who have made that transition and work exclusively with current gen languages. You have to be insanely driven and motivated to succeed at ARGO people who simply follow orders or need structure/guidance will be largely ignored. Low to medium-low quality standards and rarely disciplined for bad quality work unless the customer happens to bring it up. You can practically break things constantly and not be able to code yourself a "Hello World" statement much less a box and still survive at ARGO with little consequences. I've worked here for a long time, and I have only known 3 developers get fired for incompetence and probably seen probably 150+ leave willingly that I knew of. High turnover and a culture that knowledge is in people. Thankfully, this was slowly changing in the last year I was there. Well, at the knowledge sharing part -- turnover seems to be getting worse. Poor performers rarely get fired. For the most part they are ignored, and thankfully few of them get promoted quickly. Basic quality tenets like code reviews and thorough regression testing are scarcely practiced. ARGO seriously needs to force all teams to do a minimum to ensure quality. Heck even some teams don't even have source control because it takes too long to set up. Insanely variable hours. You can work yourself to death at ARGO on certain projects and practically have nothing to do on others. Some managers are non-technical as the customer and are incredibly daft. Others are rock stars. Recognition seems very variable and depends mainly on the strength of your boss. Have a powerful one and be a top performer and you are golden. Otherwise, you are out of luck, Joe. The Chinese food in the cafe is downright bad, which is quite strange considering who owns it. Toilet paper is far too thin and sand paper like. If you are having one of those days.... it won't be pretty. Forget about working from home or much flexibility in work schedules/lunch breaks. Feedback is inconstantly scheduled, and it isn't rare to go for months without feedback or even a year without a formal review. Took me 18 months to get my first formal review and about 4-5 months to get any kind of feedback what so ever. Promotions sometimes need to be demanded with confidence -- soft-spoken gear heads are sidelined at ARGO. Fair feedback depends on your manager and your performance is strongly influenced by your peers. Soft skills are valued over tech skills, and you need to be able to be seen as a leader to break past the first three titles. This is really only a negative for certain people. I think many companies value soft skills like they should, but at ARGO it is not only essential, but you will be forced into management/leadership if you want to get past the first few titles. Only at ARGO will you have a charismatic smooth talking visionary leader who could sell ice to Eskimos fast track when he has questionable tech skills at best. Sometimes ARGO turns off the AC during after hours. That's totally awesome if you have to work late, and don't want to VPN. I understand the desire to cut back on costs, but working late is bad enough as it is. ARGO why the hell did you downgrade cake day to cupcakes. Does a cake really cost that much? Somewhat stiff banker culture