Salary is consistent, but atmosphere is toxic - Programme Analyst Softpedia Employee Review

Only pro: good chairs, free coffee, water. But this is irrelevant if you read the cons.

I was very happy when I was selected for an interview - only the chance for working for "such a big company" made me proud, job description seemed perfect, salary - not extraordinary but appealing for a youngster. Long story short - noticed some very interesting things even if the job ad specified: "salary is X euro, meal tickets" - when they made the job offer after the interview and the test, the salary was smaller, and INCLUDED the meal tickets in it. Not negociable. I was also announced we have to work on Saturdays as well because "there is a lot of work to do". Nothing in contract about this. AND there is also a week probation - WITHOUT BEING PAID . This part is illegal. If I was older, i would have left in that second but I was naive and still had the impression "this is a big company". The work was extremely repetitive. The "trainer" made sure I have enough work - basically very long "tasks" and they daily target was tasks/day. The team leader was extremely rude, spying on everyone - keyloggers and security cameras with microphones (?!) and in the team there were some "flatterers"- my "trainer" among them- who happily notified the team leader about how we don;t understand (we were 3 newstarters) and how we do nothing. In the meantime, we were doing HIS tasks. The shift was 8 hours + lunch break but we were informed that we cannot leave the office until we finish our daily target. This was humanly impossible - I will not say more because it's too much to describe. Trust me, it was. So this made the working day to be 11-12 hours + 5-6 on Saturday + things to do at home (software reviews, if we didn;t to them, we didn;t get full salary) I left after 3 months realizing that if I keep this pace, I will go nuts/sick. I was arriving home late at night, had a quick shower and got to sleep. Day by day. Only thing I got from management - same bad redneck attitude. Last but not least, the problems caused by this infamous company continued. My self confidence was down - it was a time until I realized they are the ones to blame, not me - and I was naive enough to put this job in my CV. Which made interviewers, when I was applying for jobs, to distrust me. Nobody leaves that early from a job. Self confidence -1 again. After I deleted this from my CV, I got a job, MUCH more complex than Softpedia, IT related and looks like I'm good enough for it in the past 2 years.

Benefits are ok, the work is interesting most of the time, good work life balance, nice coworkers, most of them. Open to new technologies for the new projects.

Strict working hours, too many short life projects because of the immature management. Few career advancement opportunities. Management is sometimes disrespectful towards employees.