Pros
None. This will be the worst place you ever work.
Cons
I felt it was time for me to leave my review at the risk of the public taking the most recent slew of (fake) positive reviews seriously. That is quite a negative start, but please, I beg you, read on. There are a few different lenses from which SEW must be reviewed in order to fairly judge its qualities; not only an employer but also as a business. Spoiler alert – not a single lens is rosy. 1 - The Industry & Business Model SEW builds websites and mobile apps that allow utility customers to view and pay their bills. That’s it. If during your interview you are told that they do anything else, they are lying to you. There is absolutely nothing special about the SEW “product”. The utilities industry does not care about chat bots or AI. The utility industry cares about allowing their customers to pay their bill easily. Nothing SEW does is ground breaking or awe inspiring. 2 – The “Product” SEW does not have a product, despite what they tell you. Every implementation is built from scratch which makes production support an absolute nightmare. I would actually dare to say that the lack of productization poses a significant risk to the infrastructure of the US utilities market. The problem largely stems from a highly inexperienced Chief Product Officer who spends more time fixing dilapidating production issues instead of figuring out how to turn his 60+ projects into a product. 3 – Sales to Implementations The Sales team is remunerated on top line revenue. Yes, think about that for a second…. Cutting straight to the chase – the salesperson has absolutely no incentive to tell the truth during the sales process. As a result, clients are consistently subjected to lies and the SEW Delivery team left to pick up the pieces. Now that the Delivery team has been handed over an undeliverable scope of work, they have to fight to get any resources from offshore to deliver the project. The offshore team is treated like objects and not respected as human beings. I saw at least 3 people end up in the hospital due to terrible working conditions imposed directly by the CEO. One development pod actually went on strike for a few days. If you work in the delivery team, you have no control over who is working on a project and you will frequently be told that your team has been moved to another project – leaving you with nothing other than a very frustrated customer. It is appalling, inhumane, and probably illegal how the CEO treats both on and offshore workers. 4 – Leadership The CEO is a bad man. He will lie to anyone to get his own way. He does not value the importance of people or a strong team. He does not trust anyone and thus all decisions, to the nth detail, must go through him. He rules his company through fear and actively avoids any genuine business organization in lieu of self-imposed chaos to ensure he emerges as the hero to every challenging situation that arises. You will never progress in this company because The CEO does not want you to progress. 5 – The Proof is in the Pudding Do not rely on the website or social media for an accurate view of SEW – the marketing machine is well oiled due to the soulless CMO (who is also head of QA for some reason…). Instead, please try and find any positive quotes, reviews, press releases from clients directly. Did you look? Did you find any? Exactly… In fact, SEW has been kicked out of clients. Do your research and you will find them. It all goes back to sales. The Sales team does a great job in closing the deal, but then it’s all down hill from there. The manner in which the CEO runs the company results in consistently botched implementations. The clients who are crying the loudest get the attention at the cost of the other clients. Of the 300-ish people who work offshore (nowhere near the 1000+ as claimed by the CEO), only 20 are any good and they are moved around like a fire crew in a city engulfed in flames. My advice to: Potential candidate - take the negative reviews here on GlassDoor seriously, lest you end up severely disappointed. While some of the negative reviews may seem extreme, they are extremely accurate. Potential client – do not put yourself at risk by contracting with SEW. SEW's Advisory board - talk to the employees, not the CEO.