Pluspunten
1) You get to work on different technologies - may be because of the services nature. Employee has some freedom in choosing the projects or moving across the projects (if your middle level manager is supportive). Senior management has no issues on this. 2) Flexible timings, although it is more of a joke in several teams because of the extended time people have to spend in office. 3) No dress code, informal work environment. 4) Chance to work with some of the most reputed technology companies on their R&D projects as a client engineer. Not a privilege for everyone, but I think that as far as a typical engineering graduate is concerned, the work nature is better compared to other companies like Wipro or Infosys. 5) Good platform for freshers. You might have to suffer for 2-3 years of lower salary hikes, demanding schedules and the like compared to your friends. But many freshers view Sasken as a stepping stone to the prestigious MNCs. There are many, really many, who go to work in great places like Nokia, Samsung, Nokia Siemens, Qualcomm, Ericsson, Motorola, Alcatel Lucent etc. after 2-3 years in Sasken as a fresher. (This is valid only if you get into a good development project and not a testing project) 6) An internal program where everyone can suggest business ideas that the management would consider and take up for execution if it is good. But I don't know if it has personally benefited any employee who suggested the idea. 7) A whole week holiday at the end of December. But the total no. of holidays in the year are same as other companies, so you might not have a holiday for Ganesh Chaturthi or Diwali in some years. However, it is good for people whose homes are faraway as they get to spend one week at their homes every year.
Minpunten
I can go on writing about the downsides without any effort. I had to think hard to find the pros :) But I would want to make it civilized unlike the company I am working for. 1) Very bad middle management. I don't know why they act like that, but Project Managers are hated across teams. Maybe they have too much pressure at hand from senior management and not enough resources and are forced to act like dictators. Or a plausible theory is that, while the senior management wants to appear employee friendly, they are really pushing middle level managers to act their original and true intentions. 2) To explain the point further, employees are pushed to their maximum limits. There is a sort of feeling that people have to work 24 hours a day if customer demands that. In many teams, no one goes home before 8.30 or so, because the demands are unrealistic. 3) Bad bad workplace for women. If you are a woman and you are considering working for Sasken, I have a free advice. Don't come here. I myself am a woman and I will tell you why. Yes this company will give you an extended maternity leave without pay for 9 months, that's true, but it doesn't care a bit about the safety of women employees forced to stay late at night. The company policy says you can book cabs for going home after 10 (not after 9.00) and you HAVE TO BOOK BEFORE 7.00 pm. Situations are not uncommon when an employee will be asked to stay back at 8.30 p.m because of immediate customer demand but then she cannot book a cab as the cab HR guy would have gone home long before then. I myself have travelled back home on autorickshaw many times after 9.30 pm. If you are scared to travel on Inner Ring road stretch between ejipura and domlur at night in an autorickshaw or on an own two-wheeler, don't apply to Sasken ever. People have brought this up, but generally HR gives some standard half-baked replies. Even if they allow emergency cab booking after 10.00 for people who had to stay late unplanned because of inadvertent situations, it is fine. But those who are not blind and are simply acting as if they can't see, we cannot do anything. Management discourages use of late-night company cabs (costs money yaar), but it does not discourage late-night working. I even know of a Project Manager who suggested to a girl to buy a two-wheeler so that she can work late without worries of how to reach home!!!! 4) There was a stupid policy of discrimination amongst employees called Fast Tracker policy in which those engineers who studied in IITs, NITs or BITS were given arbitrarily high salaries and quick promotions regardless of whether they were doing anything extra compared to their teammates from other engineering colleges. It was like a reservation policy for IITians. Also, some freshers were arbitrarily made fast trackers based on their first 6 month performance. Some freshers never got a chance to prove themselves in first 6 months as they were allotted junk work or their managers didn't want them to be promoted as fast trackers fearing retributions from their other team mates. I don't know who hatched this policy, hats off to the guy as he succeeded in team-unbuilding of the best type :) Thankfully it is not followed anymore. 5) A feeling that people should be willing to work for lesser salary. 6) Sometimes they arbitrarily put freshers or good people to projects not matching their skill sets. Sometimes they hire the best guys and put them in pure manual testing of phones ! 7) Bonds that come into existence without the knowledge of employee. HR puts unnecessary roadblocks in front of people who want to leave (a sort of forcefully retaining people to control attrition). Also fresher bond of 2 lakhs for 2 years. During recession freshers were paid less salary but they were not allowed to leave once market picked up. 8) Policies are always under review. It's a 'Policy First' company now rather than 'People First' as they claim 9) Last, but the biggest issue - no growth opportunities. The company itself is stagnant and has not grown in past 5 years much , so promotions and personal growth opportunities are very limited.
