ikaSystems review: exploitation 58

not good company . no apprisals

Ika systems is a worst place to work for. Managers have absolutely no management skills nor have leadership skills. They have very poor communication skills as well. It is so non-professional place to work. Managers lie, purposely give incorrect information to team.
These managers are either related or ex-college mate of. These managers are highly paid. These managers totally misuse as well. They employee their own family (wife, sister etc..) who has absolutely no IT skills and pay them high. Others are less paid and made to work for over 15 hrs a day.

Scorpio2011 is a boot licking toady. This is one of the worst companies to work for.

ikaSystems has changed a lot from what it was 1 year back. The work culture has been very good. Before we used to work extended hours (for lot of new clients) but those days are gone now. New HR has done drastic changes and employees are much happier than before. Since company is growing very fast, getting more clients sometimes we might need to work extended hours now also. That should not be big deal. After all it's our own organization. In my team we always work as per client req, do necessay documentation etc. Please stop finding flaws all the time, concentrate in your work. If you are not satisfied working in here why are you here, just leave and find some other job. Don't spoil the environment. Yes, we care for GC ... who else does not?

Meowow is right! A new person came here very short time ago. Very smart, knew what to do. What happened? Not here anymore...happens alot lately...work way too much...family never see me...stay away...

The organization is growing and changing rapidly --- that being said, there ARE many issues.

In a word: the development culture is REACTIVE, not PROACTIVE. Possibly because of the rapid growth, limited acclimation of new hires, inexperienced managers, unrealistic promises to clients, possessiveness and mistrust among employees, long time employees unwillingness to share information, sensitivity and resentment of new, experienced talent etc. Long story short: the place is changing and there are growing pains. Long hours would not be so bad if there was proper planning and trust/respect - unfortunately, there is no defined SDLC process or documentation (everything is done on the fly), no consistency, poor corporate and team communication, nepotism, cut corners, rushed decisions, and personal issues between management on all levels causing much frustration among team members. And yes, there are people scared of losing their visas/GC so they don't speak up.

If you're considering a position at Ika: Watch the movie 'Pirates of Silicon Valley' and understand you're entering a competitive environment with some heavy baggage -- but it just might pay-off if you're willing to stick it out for the long run. I suspect a major re-org will take place sooner than later because the current situation is unsustainable.

"90 hours a week and loving it!"

IKASYSTEMS – My experience working at Southborough!

2005 – 2009 :
Top executives of most smaller organizations like ikaSystems want their companies to be different from the larger corporations. They want their organizations smaller in size; but bigger in productivity by eliminating red tapes and combined organizational structure, procedures, protocols and set of regulations in place to manage activity. When the company is smaller, people often work like bees – taking on new business and technology challenges without thinking about any procedures and guidelines. People also tend to wear many hats to accomplish tasks quickly in order to integrate new businesses. For example, software developers in smaller organizations may take on responsibilities of client interactions, requirements gathering, design and development, code deployment, production support, network infrastructure support, database design and maintenance along with countless other duties. In addition, systems in smaller organizations tend to be loosely guarded. So, people often don't follow many procedures in order to setup environments and implement technical projects. It's not uncommon to change code and deploy without anyone realizing. Similarly, business requirements may also get defined in an informal manner without any type of documentation from both client and company.

2009-till date
As the company grows by itself or by merging, everything starts to change significantly impacting people and the overall business process. Suddenly, following procedures become extremely important and become tough. Consequently, new roles, guidelines and procedures start to emerge. Everything from business process to technology implementation start to become more and more process oriented. Organizations start to define and document steps, invent procedure to track process and systems level changes, and start restricting access to various systems for security reasons. At the same time, as a growing company start doing businesses with larger clienteles, they are automatically forced to abide (await) by all sorts of industry compliance laws.

My personal opinion :
Moreover, growing companies tend to recruit experienced individuals to fill new roles (by neglecting the people already had worked like bees for years for the company given no preference to grow in ranks) by thinking experienced individuals coming into the organization usually bring their expertise from larger and more process defined organizations will change the growing company.
Despite the best efforts from the people who worked hard, top executives - it seems increased number of procedures and guidelines as well as new recruits automatically to contribute to the evolution of growing company. Maybe, this is an inevitable side effect of a growing organization. But is it a sustainable approach?

This company is the most pathetic place to work.
There are bunch of Directors who is paid more than they deserve and they take it upon themselves to make the employees life as horrible as they can.
There are a whole bunch of industrial rejects who are working in this company and have praises for this place. they are not good enough to find a job anywhere
There are bunch of Green Card asspirants who would do anything to stay here. Work 18 hours.
In all its a very pathetic place to work if you want humiliate yourself and watch your career go down the drain.Please accept the job offer.

There is a job listing at this company. Wonder how the company culture is?

The company is growing at a steady pace, it is expanding and gaining confidence of Health Plans in its products. It is an exciting place to be working at. It is far from best places to work for, but it is heading in the right direction.

Thank god I came out. Hope it gets better for the rest of the salves still living there praying for their GC.

I Agree it's a very pathetic place to work

Worst company, Worst workng envronment, they treat you as slaves, u have to work 24*7, forget ur familes, they have the worst managers. They dont have any management sklls, no planning, no documentation, Seriously recommend not to take an offer from this company.

I heard that 51% of its stake is taken over by an Americam company, Thank God, good for the remaning slaves there.

PS : For instance about treatment, I was once asked by a manager to always stay in the office until 3 am, also get my
toiletries. I was afraid if he is gonna also ask one day to get my family there.

Big NO0000000000000000 for this company.

can anyone shed light on the employee treatment off late at Ika Systems? I'm guessing the management has shifted gears in their policies and procedures. Any comments?...

IkaSystems a few words -

Most of our employees are either Ravi's Relative or his ex college mate or he worked with them before, all others are slaves, has to work minimum 14 hours a day, 7 days a week.

The only reason we do not leave our company is because green card is being processed or most of you are simply industry rejects and can't get any job and you are ready to sit 24/7 in office to keep your job.

Work culture is simply third world. Very bad exploitation and it has to be investigated.

-- Managers, stop replying to this message by trasing me and feeding your lies, IkaSystems accounts should be audited and investigated by interviewing every employee, then the real truth will come out.

Please do not think that I want to see IkaSystems go down, I simply want you to stop exploiting us, you do not need to worry if I my stements are lies.

If the user jaa is toxic to you then you must be one of those MANAGERS who require the 18 hr work days. You must not also be one of the MANY H1B visa employees -- because those are the ones who are being exploited. They don't complain out of fear of being sent back to India. Make no mistake, there ARE people being forced to work 7 days a week, 12-18 hrs a day.

In the job market you will not find a WORST company to work for. I have not been at a company with so many people wanting so desperately to get out due to the VERY poor work conditions. Either the people who posted those 'positive' comments about ikaSystems are managers or you have been given some sort of 'special' treatment by upper management. Which would also not be surprising I bet you are related to the CEO -- not so shocking either since nepotism is the norm there. Rarely are people hired there for competence. Mostly it depends on who they are related to in the company.

I find the positive comments here to be infuriating and irresponsible. It's only a matter of time before ikaSystems goes down the drain because of a labor lawsuit. I guarantee it. For any lawyers out there... there's easy cash to be made... no HR department! No compliance with labor laws!

I think this is unfortunate that we have an employee who feels this way. I have been with ikaSystems for over 2 years. I have worked for many companies and have had nothing but a wonderful experience here.

The management team is the most thoughtful and family orientated organization I have ever worked for. They not only embrace the employee but also the customer. Granted we work hard to achieve our success on all fronts. ikaSystems is successful because of all the hard work and dedication we give. Our employees are proud our clients are even prouder. They actually speak in our behalf at trade shows and other types of meetings. Our competition cannot hold a candle to our product and client base. It is because of the management and employees of ikaSystems that make this possible.

Employees like this are toxic to the organization. Hopefully this person no longer works for us. If they do they need to be spoken to and dealt with as this kind of attitude and behaviour is unacceptable as the complaint is not truthful and it only hurts the individuals who care and work hard for the success of our company.

Who ever wrote this comment should be ashamed for this and hopefully if you are still with ikaSystems you will consider working for another company and not poison us with this inaccurate portrayal and depiction of ikaSystems. You need a reality check.

In this job market you will not find another company as good as this; having this much success and job security. I challenge you to find another company as good as ikaSystems. I guarantee you will find it difficult, if not impossible. You should consider yourself lucky to be here and like I said earlier be ashamed for making these false accusations towards the hand that feeds you. SHAME ON YOU !

I THINK THIS RANT IS COMING FROM INEFFICIENT PEOPLE WHO ARE USED TO LAZY WORKING OF BIG SERVICE COMPANIES.

I HAVE BEEN AT THE COMPANY FOR OVER 2 YEARS NOW AND I FEEL YOU CAN FINISH YOUR WORK AND DO WHATEVER YOU WANT. I WORK 10-6:30/7:00 MAX. THERE ARE PEOPLE WHO SPEND HALF DAY IN COFFEE AND LUNCH AND END UP STAYING LATE.

ON THE OTHER SIDE, I FEEL ITS A GOOD PLACE TO LEARN AND ITS LIKE A BIG FAMILY. ITS FAST GROWING COMPANY IN COMPETITIVE MARKET AND SOMETIMES YOU HAVE TO PUT EXTRA EFFORT. AS THE COMPANY IS GROWING THINGS ARE BECOMING MORE COMFORTABLE AND NEW PEOPLE ARE COMING IN ALMOST EVERY OTHER DAY.