Meaningful projects, negative culture
Pros
The portfolio and pipeline of projects is interesting and one gets very involved in their delivery, while enjoying a lot of responsibility and autonomy –this gives an opportunity to grow professionally and to acquire technical knowledge. There isn’t much hierarchy, which means a lot more interaction with the senior leadership than one might expect, which again can be great for personal development.
Cons
Lack of resources: there seems to be a lot of ghost staff – subject matter specialists that you are expected to draw on – who, if they exist, they are completely inaccessible; in another territory or 100% utilised on a project. A practice area/support function/team can often mean no more than 2-3 junior people, completely stretched out or out of their depth. In practice, this means that for much of the time one works in isolation, and input from other teams comes as critique or contradicting feedback without any sense of shared ownership or goals. In the absence of clear structures and ownership, it is difficult to know what/whose guidance to follow, so one’s decision-making is based on fear rather than judgement and new ideas are stifled. This makes quite a toxic atmosphere to work in and any diversity is only superficial. The project delivery side seems to be less affected by some of the negative behaviours that seems to be commonly accepted in business development, but there is a gulf between the HQ and the in-country project teams, towards whom the HQ staff can be quite disparaging. In its efforts to become more corporate and unified after a number of mergers, the company is putting systems and processes before people, so that the latter ends up serving the former rather than the other way round.
