Flow Traders

Included breakfast and lunches. Sometimes smart people. Compensation is somewhat bigger than on the average market.

I do not know where to even start. Let's see.

• Lying management. After the 2023 H1 result, which was the worst for the whole company in 20 years of history, the top management held a meeting the next day in which they explained that we performed pretty badly because of low volatility and small volumes on the markets, and no one would be fired. So this is a market issue, not an employee issue. After that meeting, some of the people on contract were not prolonged, and instead of firing people and compensating them, they assigned them a Performance Improvement Plan (PiP), which is the way to dismiss people on a permanent contract. I was surprised that some people had one; I never expected that they would be treated like that. They performed well because I worked with them in one team, so I think there was a command from upper management to find "scapegoats." Mostly it was everyone except "beloved" traders, because you know traders are the profit, and as an engineer, you are the expense and can be easily replaced, especially for the new CEO with previous experience as CFO. He looks at the company/people as a table in Excel, and when we talk, he usually speaks about other positive stuff (hold the hand together and that kind of sht), but at the end of the day, cut costs, salary ones. I do understand the issue that the company has, but I think you should speak truthfully and not say one thing and do another. And after two months, Flow veteran Folker, who worked with the company for somewhat 15 years, "decided" to leave the company. When people leave, they usually write a letter themselves. But instead of Folker, our new CEO wrote the email and said that Folker decided to leave the company, and he emphasized that it is not because of the company strategy. Which is total bullsht. So that is the part about lying.

• You should have legal insurance! Otherwise, it will be challenging for you. I have been with Flow for 5.5 years. And I know people who left Flow Traders. Flow always tries to enforce a non-compete on you, even if you are going to, for example, ABN Amro, which is not a competitor, and people without lawyers cannot properly object to the company.

• Although the company says it is held to the people, I do not know an example when someone who wants to leave has been kept in the company. The company talks about loyalty and that it has an impact on the bonus, but it is a total lie. Your compensation depends on your relations with the management (TL and middle management) and not on loyalty.

• Compensation. Hmm, the basic salary is somewhat bigger than on the market in general, but the total compensation (salary + bonus) is less than our competitors have. The competitors have the same or slightly less salary, but when it comes to the bonus, they have like 2x-3x the base salary. In Flow, you will get a bonus like 15-60% of your base salary. I do know colleagues that have been with the company for several years, and although they have a big impact and great contributions, they are getting less than new hires. To level up, you need to do a lot of USELESS inner courses. A person from the street does not have this problem and gets a bigger paycheck from the start and a bigger bonus because they are more "senior" than the old employee. I do not say that the new hires are bad people or perform badly; I am just saying that the company treats people unfairly on compensation. And the 2023 year bonus was pretty good for me. I did not expect that in circumstances when we performed that badly. I thought finally we as engineers become treated more fairly in comparison with traders, but after a couple of drinks in the bar, I talked to people who had PiP, and you know what? They did not receive any bonus. So one employee gets 0 because they performed "badly," and the other has a pretty good bonus for the bad year.

Be more truthful. Make career opportunities available to existing employees.