Capgemini

The company pays reasonably well and, depending on where you are located, can be flexible at times.

Capgemini is a company that is very good at glossy self-promotion and projecting an image to the world of being a market leader through its fancy logos and branding, but the truth is very much the opposite.

At its heart, the company is stuck in the 1970s, where shareholder supremacy is prioritized over its people. The organizational structure is often referred to as a “Boys Club” by employees, as its overly complex performance management systems can be manipulated to ensure those that agree climb the ladder, and those that don’t simply suffer at the bottom until they leave.

Career progression can be made by some, but is usually determined by how many additional unpaid hours you are willing to put into your own ideas and innovations, or by how much you blindly agree with management, even if there is no value within what you are being asked to do.

For anyone thinking of joining the company, it is worth understanding that there are primarily two different, opposing cultures within the organization. The first is made up of all the engineers, testers, developers, etc., that live and breathe the company values daily. The second is made up of layers upon layers of management that are willing to sacrifice not only the company values but also the people for short-term gain.

Generally, due to the nature and experience of the middle management, the company is not very good at looking after its people. For those that have worked for the company for as long as I have, it hurts to be made to feel like just a name on a spreadsheet that can be wiped off to hit an arbitrary projection.

My advice to management is to take a step back and truly understand the reason the company was created in the first place.

We cannot replace Serge Kampf, but we can find our way back to his vision.