Could be a great place to work but they're not quite there yet
Pros
- The Bristol office is fantastic. I enjoyed working with all of the Bristol staff without exception. I have made several good friends in my time at Somo who I will continue to keep in contact with. The office space itself is also really good. - I genuinely liked the CEO. Despite the flaws in his company he does actually care about his staff and is approachable. When he can, he does try to make the time to speak to you personally. Upper management do WANT to reward hard work and success. They have mixed results concerning who they reward and why but the intent is clearly there. - Somo is willing to pay for training courses and conference attendance (even if it's abroad). I was often signing up for online courses and allowed to attend technical workshops. Somo is certainly happy for you to try and develop yourself. - The scrum masters in Bristol are all excellent and will do their utmost to protect the best interests of both the team and the project. The technical innovation work that did happen was driven in large part by the scrum masters. - The head of engineering in Bristol is also great. If you go to him with a problem then he will often drop what he's doing and take steps to resolve the situation as soon as he can. He also tries to keep the Bristol staff regularly and honestly updated about the company current situation. This was certainly appreciated. - The salary was pretty decent and Somo are willing to do regular salary reviews. However, this is offset somewhat by the very low pension scheme. The holiday scheme is also very respectable. - The massages were an unusual but nice perk. I never used the health care perk but it was good to know it was there. In fact, the company device was also appreciated. - Somo is flexible on working hours and working from home when needed. I never had any (reasonable) requests denied to work from home or come in late and make up my hours. -I feel that I'm a better developer now than I was when I started. Therefore, before I get to the cons I feel I should say that, overall, I enjoyed my time at Somo.
Cons
- The companies core values bear little relation to the reality of the work we do. Innovation happened rarely and was often led by marketers rather than the technical specialists. Far too many important technical decisions are made by non-technical people. - The staff appraisal system is awful. The metrics are wooly and subject to arbitrary changes. Good scores often rely on how known/liked you are by upper management. Staff members are often marked down for tenuous reasons. Sadly, I know several staff members who were offended by this enough to quit. - The middle management layer is a mess. The vast majority of the project managers and product owners are very young and/or inexperienced. Engineers and technical specialists are often overruled or ignored which lead to heavy code re-writes or delays in delivery. This is then blamed on the engineers! The face saving culture of the London office is frankly horrific. There are quite a few people who actively (and publicly) blame others for their own mistakes. - Mis-management is far too often rewarded. People who end up working overtime to do everything at the last minute because of poor planning are publicly praised for 'working hard' and 'smashing it' despite being massive contributors to the crisis in the first place. - If a project hits a crisis point then management has a bad habit of micromanaging and flip-flopping on decisions. This is incredibly stressful and damaging to morale. - I was sold on the promise of working on a variety of different projects and working on exciting and new tech. I worked for Somo for 2 years and 90% of my work was for 1 client. I would have had a similar experience if I spent the 2 years working for the bank...
