Pros
Capco really can be an amazing place to work but there are too many issues acting as barriers to making Capco truly top tier. Recent reviews have shown that Capco has its blemishes. Those concerns are not invalid and this review speaks to my view of them but, overall, this place has its potential and you can grow a career here. I believe that I’ve developed both great colleagues and friends that I will have throughout my career. I have learned a lot in my time here from the people willing to share their knowledge generously. Most partners and senior management are approachable and, if you get a good coach, there is usually a clear path for promotion (at least at the lower levels). The challenge is, so many coaches are disengaged and, if you have a bad one, you might as well just quit. There is also no real performance criteria for coaching. There is no shortage of work and, if you’re willing to put in the hours on actual work (not the fluffy stuff), there is great potential for personal growth and interesting work. In Canada, if you’re a developer, there is no better place to work. If you’re good, you’ll get better. If you’re great, you’ll become awesome. There is no better true, full service, digital shop.
Cons
Previous reviews have not been inaccurate. There is a VERY small group of partners who produce sales. As mentioned in a previous review, there are partners that seem to have no real purpose, other than showing up a couple days a week. Others seem talk for years, about “the big deal” but have seemed to not produce or need a lot of hand holding to close a deal. Of the partners that do produce, sales, most of them seem line their project staff to take the fall and to protect themselves from any client fallout. Often it’s the people left behind after the partners have moved on to their next client (victim) who are left to pick up the pieces and shoulder the blame. If you can survive those projects you’ll find yourself in great shape to withstand anything that the corporate world can throw at you. The performance expectation framework is rarely followed in the Canadian office, ad hoc application of standards to some employees and not to others and a generally broken review process where the loudest voice in the room at round tables gets their way and performance ratings end up all over the map. In their responses on this forum, HC keep claiming how they have an open and transparent process in place and how they’re fixing or have fixed this. They haven’t (HC in NY talks a lot but have few results to show for it. It seems that when they “fix” the review process, they only make it more broken. Lack of a 360 process – A previous review highlighted the lack of a 360 review process. There was an attempt at creating this a couple of years ago but seemed to be a side effort with very little senior leadership support. The effort really fell flat. A 360 review should be part of all promotions discussions to senior levels (PC and above). The big barrier to success of the program, other than leadership support, is that Capco has tried to manage this internally and there is a widespread lack of trust that any feedback is confidential. As noted in the previous review, the lack of a true mechanism for feedback from junior resources regarding more senior resources results in people only managing their careers “upward”. Often this creates an impression/reality of sucking up and certain leadership seem to almost adopt some of these individuals as their favorites. Sometimes that favoritism is deserved because some of these individuals are high performers. Unfortunately, often, some of these people are just good at assigning blame for their own mess ups and poor performance. Inappropriate behaviour – Yes it is the elephant in the room, but it is nothing new. There have been previous reviews here that spoke to this and they have been consistently here for some time (referring to the office as a frat house among other things). Nothing was done then and, while Capco will provide lip service to actions they will take, there is no confidence in the office that anything will change and, because nothing has been done in the past, people are highly unlikely to step forward to raise concerns to a corporate function (HC) that they don’t trust. This is particularly true in Toronto where local HC, although trusted, do not have the staff to address concerns without escalating to NY and the NY leads haven’t made an appearance in Toronto (to my knowledge) for over a year. (TBH, I'm not sure senior management want NY HC in the office. HC may find out a few things) While being careful not to diminish the gravity of the issues (both real and rumoured), it seems corporate HC has either turned a blind eye to these issues or is so disconnected from the goings on in both the Toronto and New York office that it borders on negligence. Given that a lot of the stories of the inappropriate behaviour in New York make it to Toronto and vice versa, it’s hard to believe that corporate HC are oblivious. If they are truly this disconnected then there needs to be some serious questions asked of the general competence of this function in Capco. Ultimately, this is an issue of individuals and should be addressed that way. HC is right in saying there needs to be a reminder of corporate policy. That part they do have right. The real question are - will HC directly address the behaviours of those who have caused the issues to be raised (yes there are many)? - Do the HC people in place today have the ability to create anything but a public facing response? Can they be the agents of change? - Can the HC organization start to regain the trust of staff? Based on the number of anonymous responses, including mine. HC is currently not trusted to address some of these long standing concerns in a confidential and thorough matter. (Other than passive aggressive responses on this site that don't, in any way represent perception of staff or the reality of HC's performance) We’re talking about trust and trust is based on perception and a track record of results. So far, there has been a total lack of results on any of these topics from HC (despite what their claims are here).