An Epic saga...

I'm three weeks into my new job at Greenhouse, and all is going well. I've finally got some programming to do, in the form of a small report submissions tool for the DFES. It's good to be doing useful work again, after an initial 6 days of Research & Development into tools and methodologies for Greenhouse, I was starting to feel like I wanted to do something useful! It's been an odd few weeks, after a gentle wind-down at Epic, then a gentle easing-in period at Greenhouse, I really feel like I'm ready to do some hardcore coding.

My R&D work has been useful on a number of counts, because we now have two working SubVersion servers, I've upgraded the RAM in the main development server, the whole team are up to speed with SCRUM, we're evaulating Google Calendar, and we've got a working installation of Liberum (an open-source issue tracking system). We're planning to use SCRUM from next week onwards, and I must remember to buy a large pin-board for our task cards :)

It came as no surprise (to me anyway) to hear that my former employer, Epic, have laid off 12 members of staff, in a cost-cutting exercise. It's been a very poor year for Epic financially, and they've been leaking senior staff at an alarming rate. Surprisingly, the 12 people chosen for the axe, were all senior members of staff - some with over 10 years' service - which suggests the move was as much about reducing the wage bill, as it was about reducing numbers, to make the company a more attractive prospect for potential buyers. With a pay freeze in place for the next year, it's likely that they will continue to lose staff, and will eventually end up with the majority of their staff being under the age of 30 - or even more likely, under the age of 25. Epic are a good company to work for if you're starting a career in I.T. but once you get to a certain level of competence, you're bashing your head against the ceiling. The support structures and incentives simply aren't there to make a long-term career worthwhile, so my advice to any current employees reading this, is to stay for two or three years, then move on to somewhere more forward-thinking and nurturing.
The downside for Epic, of course, is that junior staff will have a long lead-in period, during which the quality of their work generally won't match that of the senior staff who have left. This was already feeding through to clients when I left, with rising numbers of software bugs and client complaints. However, there is a large and well-paid management team at Epic, and it's something for them to 'manage'. I wish them luck :)