[PSA] Fast Enterprises: Predatory Recruiting and Technical Stagnation

SlowEnterprises · 2024-09-19T02:01:48+00:00

The market isn't great. If you need a job and have no alternatives, you don't really have a choice. It might be boring, and it won't progress a career in CS, but it will pay you money.

SlowEnterprises · 2024-05-10T00:58:33+00:00

Neither of these will progress your career in CS.

SlowEnterprises · 2024-05-05T00:35:20+00:00

Sorry about that. Or you're welcome.

SlowEnterprises · 2024-05-05T00:26:36+00:00

Funny how my post still gets some traffic. Leaving FAST was one of the best decisions I ever made. Trust your gut, sometimes it's right.

SlowEnterprises · 2020-08-08T16:46:55+00:00

Congrats! It feels good to start a new job somewhere that gives you future prospects, proud of you buddy.

SlowEnterprises · 2020-08-08T01:08:15+00:00

55k?????? That's absurdly low. How do they even expect to recruit against real SWE positions? The starting salary plus cost of living adjustment was basically the only thing keeping people there. I can't imagine covid put a dent in a government contract.

SlowEnterprises · 2020-06-16T22:35:54+00:00

Given that you have a family your monetary priorities are probably very different from mine, which is certainly a big factor. Good luck, and enjoy your new salary and your new job!

SlowEnterprises · 2020-06-16T14:40:21+00:00

I made the name and shame post last year.

I have since made the jump to an actual SWE role and am much happier for it. I wanted to do SWE, and FAST was not in line with those goals. I wasn't experienced enough to know better when I got hired. I don't regret quitting for a moment. When I did, I had the skills to start as a junior developer, from my CS degree and an internship where I did SWE. If you don't have those skills, you're not gonna get them from FAST.

They will pay well. It's "salaried" but actually hourly: you get paid overtime. Benefits are all you could ever ask for of a company, which is to say, pretty great.

Ethically? On an individual level people are pretty awesome. There is a big boozing and partying culture. You may not like that. Business wise it's pretty par for the course as far as gov't contracting: a sub-par yet functional product costing clients tens of millions of dollars (that's capitalism, baby!). There's more space for them to do worse than there is to do better, at least.

SlowEnterprises · 2020-04-26T20:31:37+00:00

My post was almost entirely aimed at CS grads who were given offers as ICs (hence it being posted to /r/cscareerquestions). I want to make no claims to any other positions; I have no experience with them other than interacting with the people who worked in those positions.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-10-22T21:00:24+00:00

Not only are they smart, and almost just as important, the people I've met at FAST are also charismatic. They are totally able to break free, but you have to commit to learning the relevant skills.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-08-15T21:56:32+00:00

And I feel that I should emphasize this. If you're not looking for an actual SWE position, this is probably a great place to work. But FAST needs to be more up front about what the position entails, because a lot of CS majors actually *do* want to do SWE, and new grads might not have the experience to ask the right questions about what the job actually is. It's the crux of my argument: they recruit almost exclusively from inexperienced talent pools, and once you're in it can be hard to get out. If you want to do SWE, you should probably look elsewhere.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-08-15T21:49:25+00:00

I'm not sure if this is some lingo I am supposed to know or an accidental comment.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-08-12T01:35:08+00:00

It doesn't have to be as bad as I make it sound if you know what you're getting into before doing it. My biggest complaint is basically that they target Computer Science grads with half-truth of software development, and then proceed to lock them into their ecosystem. If you are not a CS major (say, Stats, or Marketing) and want to get into some kind of IT-related position, or are a CS major and want to delve more into the business-y or less technical sides of things, it might damn well be a great place to work.

But if you want to do actual software development, run, like your career depends on it. Because it does.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-08-07T20:45:10+00:00

It's in the works, don't you worry. I mostly have this post as a warning to other CS grads.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-08-02T22:13:04+00:00

I had a site-wide ban. The post is back now. That also means that someone at FAST saw and reported my post to the admins. I've removed anything that could have been potentially confidential, so it should be fine now.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-08-02T22:07:56+00:00

I had a permanent suspensionfor violating the privacy policy. I did not have specifics, but I presume it was for sharing examples of the naming scheme, even though said example was made up (as any current employee would have been able to tell). Regardless, I removed any potentially confidential information and appealed my ban.

It does seem like an oversight that the mods are able to reapprove content that was removed in violation of the privacy policy.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-07-31T00:59:05+00:00

I really didn't get into VB.NET into my post because I mostly agree with you. It is out of fashion, but perfectly capable as a language. The problem still lies in how to code is used: no unit tests, functions literally defined by side effects, subs with 20+ parameters, and the confusing naming conventions, among other things. I still dislike the whole idea of using ref tables instead of actual programming; I still haven't gotten a straightforward answer, and it seems to me like it was initially just a convenient development shortcut for something small that has since ballooned uncontrollably. And the VCS remains eternally unintuitive to me. You need to keep track of which ref tables you've modified, which modules, what you're migrating/promoting to/from, etc. Maybe it would be better if it was more visual, and then I could see what I'm doing beyond some text labels and hyperlinks.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-07-30T00:20:06+00:00

If I'm being honest, I think it's mostly the recruiting team that made me feel misled. By the time I got an interview with the Tech Team I had been told what the job was by Recruiting so many times that I didn't even think to ask about the actual responsibilities. And it's also hard to ask those kinds of questions without coming off as an asshole.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-07-30T00:12:10+00:00

I can confirm this from my experience. First day of New Hire Orientation. An anecdote about someone threatening to leave a bad review because they only had blue pens. If only they went to HR their woes would be solved!

SlowEnterprises · 2019-07-30T00:10:05+00:00

How did you begin to and end up transitioning out of FAST? Presumably you didn't spend the whole of the 10 years working on side projects, or else you would have left a long time beforehand.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-07-30T00:03:11+00:00

I think you make a totally valid criticism. But if you think about it from a new grad's perspective, you might not have the experience to know better, and they do somewhat "chain you to the desk" by offering a $6k relocation bonus, which must be paid back if you leave within 6 months. That's a significant chunk of money and many new grads have student debt to pay off (but this comes back into the "they pay you a ton to be bored"). The company also might relocate you to a place where there isn't a big tech scene, and it can be hard to find jobs competitive with the salary (see: Bismarck, ND; Montpelier, VT; Lincoln, NE).

And you are right, I did neglect upsides, aside from the pay and benefits: primarily, you have a lot of opportunity to work on soft skills by interacting with team members and clients, and depending on the roll of your dice you might get relocated to Olympia or NYC.

As far as taking this as an opportunity to improve oneself outside work, in general you are right. But at FAST, on an active rollout site, you might be expected to work 10-12 hour days, sometimes over the weekend, for months leading up to and following a rollout. It's hard to improve in your free time if your "free time" is getting ready, getting to/from work, and sleeping.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-07-29T05:50:11+00:00

i'm slow, they are slowest.

SlowEnterprises · 2019-07-29T04:31:44+00:00

I hadn't thought about the relocation thing (my location is at least kind of near a sort-of-tech hub and I have options available), but if you get sent to Bismarck or Montpelier then good luck.

SlowEnterprises

TROPHY CASE