Great for learning and gaining experience
Pros
The trainers and managers are very resourceful and really care about my and my colleagues’ success. We were thoroughly trained on the key technologies at great depth. The team that I ended up with enabled me to really hone my technical skills and encouraged me to feel ownership of my work. Also, this company works with many finserv clients, so it’s a good opportunity for those who want to gain experience working with a finserv project.
Cons
The pay is so low that I felt embarrassed when family and friends asked me how much I make. I always had to diverge the conversation topic. The benefit is as minimal as it can get. I took a bereavement leave and it was unpaid by default as per BC provincial laws. As an associate, I am only entitled to 10 days of paid personal leave and 10 days of paid sick leave. Many teams are also required to use their personal leave balance for the “annual company-wide holidays shutdown” that costed us 5 days of the leave balance, so I only had 5 days left for the real personal vacations. Also, I am an over-achiever but now I questioned myself why do I always have to push myself so much harder than my peers. I asked for a raise and my manager agreed that I did deceive as per my annual performance review. His manager also agreed that I did deserve it. At the end, the management responded that no one shall get a raise for that year.