Thoughtworks reviews

4.0

79% would recommend to a friend

(4,642 total reviews)
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Mike Sutcliff

79% approve of CEO

57% positive business outlook

Thoughtworks has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 4,642 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Thoughtworks employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Tecnologías de la información industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

5K reviews
2.0
Dec 15, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I grew up a lot since I joined the company and I know that this is common thing there for everyone, which is awesome. There used to be always good tech people in there, but the scenario has been changing a bit these days (take a look at the "cons" below). Work x life balance is good if you are not a person willing to do "big jumps" in terms of promotions, otherwise your life needs to be spend mostly in the company. Work times are pretty flexible and the variety of projects is a big thing for those who want to expand their paradigms in terms of IT. Clients are also diverse, so you will have a bunch of different challenges while there.

Cons

Lately, as the company is aiming on having more diversity (genre, race, etc), the tech expertise of new hires decreased a bit. The hiring process used to be harder than it is nowadays, and that's part of their diversity strategy. The idea is that more "senior" colleagues can help these new hires with less tech background to be able to have a good grip on related subjects - this is very nice, but sometimes due to this "urgency" on hiring more diverse people, the hiring process ends up accepting people that are not technically able to join a team and starting doing billable work ASAP, which leads to very slow on-boards and/or not offering the "excellence in technology" that the company marketing likes to talk about. Due to the variety in terms of projects/technologies, I know that people get tired after a while - the work becomes too shallow, i.e. you are never able to go really deep in a given technology/methodology, as you keep switching it through different projects. It's too intense/dynamic, and that starts to drown people's energy with time. The salary anual reviews, despite its organized process and being generally OK, are not really fair. They say that it's not possible for one to do big jumps in terms of promotions within an year period, but there are some cases where someone that joined as a junior got to a senior grade in less than 2 years - that's really lame, and the reason is that not always those who did big jumps are really "that good", is just that they are more extrovert people, keep talking and talking with the management and are always spreading the work about little things that they do - so others hear about it and think "wow, that is really good". I know a bunch of other folks that are the opposite (introvert + don't keep broadcasting what they do there), but are way more dedicated to the company - either by coaching/mentoring other folks in there, writing articles for magazines, giving talks or by doing an excellent job with clients - something that many don't care that much. It seems like for the management that is just "the basic" and they don't care. This is the worst part IMHO.

3.0
Mar 17, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Group of exceptionally skilled people - Lots of technical discussions outside the scope of the project - Opportunity to travel abroad - Great add-on to anyone's resume - There is a strong support for technical issues in internal wiki - Diverse environment, with lots of foreign people, making the environment very rich

Cons

- Worst salaries in the TechnoPUC campus, which are justified that the company provides a great environment and opportunities that no other company in the whole wide world can (really?) - Culture brainwash. I've been into it. If you are there, they (when I say "they", I mean from the HR staff to your project colleague) will make you believe that TW is the best company in the world and you are now part of an elite group. - Arrogant and pedant technical leads. At TW, there are those 5 grades: Graduated, Consultant, Senior Consultant, Lead Consultant and Principal Consultant. As soon as someone reaches the Lead Consultant level, comes together a big bag of arrogance. - Politically correct patrol in the company. Just like the movie Matrix, everyone at TW is a potential "agent" and controls your freedom of speech. If you disagree on the political view that the majority follows, you are going to be "educated" about the subject. That is the term used there. From that point, you have only three options: accept the brainwash and become part of it, pretend to accept and never, ever mention this or quit the company because you don't fit in the company's culture. - Brazilians are not allowed to ask for transfers to USA, Australia and Europe anymore. You can go there, but inside a project for a maximum of 9 months. The public statement behind this is that "Brazil should be a leader and promote social justice in the poor countries", which are India, China, Equador and the African countries. That is just plain stupid. An employee that wants to travel to "poor countries" has a completely different profile of an employee that wants to travel to "rich countries" and one thing should not interfere on another. - The employees that work on extra hours and on weekends get an extra recognition, which makes everybody trying to do the same, jeopardising the personal life. It is not cool to work long hours on Saturday and Sunday to put fire away to save a project. - Most of projects are dull and offer no challenges. Developers are happy to travel abroad and meet the client, but as soon as they return, they become depressed.

5.0
Apr 3, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I joined TW fresh out of college and spent nearly 10 years, worked in Bangalore and Pune office. Things I loved about TW : - Casual atmosphere, no formals/cubicles/bosses. - You will find lots of passionate people around you. Their passion is not limited to work related stuff. - People in general are open to ideas/feedback which is essential for pairing, and specially for agile to work. - You can remain a tech person irrespective of your years of experience. Management is not necessarily the 'next step' here. - Good work life balance. You would rarely be asked to work on weekends or beyond office hours. No need to get any permission to avail leaves. - University(training for grads) is one of the best training program I have come across. - STEP : a unique program which is for diploma holders. They are provided with S/W training, get to work on a live project and are also prepped up to complete a bachelor's degree. They might even be offered a job in TW at the end of this 2 years of training if they perform well. - Juice stall, indoor games(pool :-)) , allowance for books, allowance for hobbies, Away Day and many more interesting things _________________ Personally I am grateful to TW for helping me when I needed it the most. The management co-operated in the best way possible, and provided me with various benefits and facilities to support me in my hour of need. TW claims to be a people's company and I can totally vouch for that. __________________ Overall TW has a very positive feel to it. You will easily make friends here. It's a fun place to work in.

Cons

TW is all about the people and culture, since many long time employees have left, there is a lack of people who can help maintain this amazing culture.

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Thoughtworks Response
7y
Thank you for writing such a detailed review! I'll be sure to share it. It's awesome to read all the things you loved about working at TW. I totally agree with you - as we grow (very quickly in many regions) it is important that we hire the kind of people who can continue to build and contribute to the culture we're known for. We have a pretty rigorous hiring process designed to help both our team and job candidates determine if there is a strong cultural fit. It's a process we continue to monitor and refine. If you would like to share anything else about your recent experience directly, please feel free to reach out to me! Nicole nnavigli@thoughtworks.com
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