4 ms·

I don’t know about Docker but I concur about Concur. It’s 1990s technology that’s only a quarter step above mainframe green screens. I will say that Docker’s 2

I don’t know about Docker but I concur about Concur. It’s 1990s technology that’s only a quarter step above mainframe green screens. I will say that Docker’s 2.9 on Glassdoor is very low for a tech company.

windexh8er 7y ago
I will say that rating is likely very close to how I'd rate the company overall during my short tenure there.
GordonS 7y ago
We have to use Concur at the megacorp where I work - it truely is awful. It's slow, clunky, and often just gets in your way. For example, if I attach a receipt, the "receipt is attached" toggle remains off - you still have to manually change it! The "cost allocation" stuff is also an unnecessary waste of time, and things often seem to be off by a penny, which causes Concur to complain and prevents submission. I could go on.. For such a large scale system, I just can't fathom the UX or performance.
- twa927 7y ago
  For some reason many "enterprise" software products are clunky and buggy. I guess this is because the decision to use the software is made by managers who don't ever use it.
  - opsunit 7y ago
    I think it is more to do with the fact that "enterprise" software vendors have done the boring legwork of ticking all of the necessary multi-jurisdiction legal tick-boxes, implement that one insane export format, provide reports required just-so by a given regulator and so-on. The value they provide to the business is outside of the software in that sense.
    - twa927 7y ago
      It's good that the managers care for the higher-level "business" goals, but shouldn't they care for their subordinates more? In the end it also contributes to a business metric - employee happiness. When I was switching a corporate job to a startup job the fact that I switched from a corporate Outlook and a proprietary issue software to GMail and Github made me happier.
      - opsunit 7y ago
        I suppose my point is ultimately that they're not goals, they're requirements, and they are often imposed from the outside by legal or other official bodies. In that context caring doesn't really come into it. In terms of the vendors of shitty enterprise software (and attempting to answer your original question), if you've spent a bunch of time, money and effort making the Venn diagram of certifications and industry accreditations and implementing niche proprietary licensed file formats converge into your product you may not have either the willing, cash, or capability to produce quality software with flavour-of-the-month UX too.
      - dragonwriter 7y ago
        > It's good that the managers care for the higher-level "business" goals, but shouldn't they care for their subordinates more? Ideally, yes; rationally, given the incentives of the concrete eco omic system they exist in, no. Managers work for higher level managers, or at the highest level for capital owners of the business, not for their employees except to the extent that the employees are also capital owners of the business. Managers aren't union reps for their subordinates, they are agents of capital. That's, literally, their job.
        twa927 7y ago
        This sounds like early 20th century capitalism... I don't think it's very applicable to the current programming industry, where companies have to fight to retain good employees. Also, the top-down structure is no longer preserved within the Agile's "self-organizing teams". So in this landscape I think it's very reasonable to take seriously what programmers think about the given internal software.
  - mathattack 7y ago
    Also execs (both buyers and sellers) choose to underinvest over time.
  - dragonwriter 7y ago
    > For some reason many "enterprise" software products are clunky and buggy. That's because “selling to enterprises” is a distinct competency from “making a working product”. > I guess this is because the decision to use the software is made by managers who don't ever use it. That's, often, an important part of the problem, but another, perhaps more signficant, part of the problem is that enterprise level constraints on software purchasing decisions are often made by managers (or management workgroups with no single responsible party, or even by directly by state or federal legislation and/or regulation from outside the purchasing agency [0]) who are (or, in the case of groups, consist of people who mainly are) remote in time and org-chart distance from both the decision to purchase software and the actual use of the software. This is perhaps most notoriously true in the public sector, where often the most critical competency for selling to an agency is the ability to navigate the acquisition policies applicable to that agency, which in the most complex of cases involve policies driven by both state and federal legislation and regulation by multiple state and federal control agencies as well as the internal policies of the agency actually doing the purchasing, but any large organization tends to have bureaucratic purchasing rules which, while usually well-intentioned and sometimes legitimately necessary to avoid even worse adverse effects, inadvertently reward vendors with competence in navigating the particular bureaucratic maze over those that lack such competence in a way that can at times outweigh competence in delivery.
  - iamatworknow 7y ago
    The company I work for provides software to a very specific enterprise market. One of the most insightful moves the owner/CEO made was starting a business that uses the software right alongside the software company itself (in the building next door). Members of the software company staff do week long rotations working at that business just so they can get a real life feel for actual needs of the market, which has been really beneficial.
ChuckNorris89 7y ago
Low marks on Glassdoor are pretty much the norm in European tech companies, especially in countries like Germany.
- ahartmetz 7y ago
  Maybe they are actually crap. Many seem to be running a sweatshop model - long hours, low pay (yes really - that's a big difference to Silicon Valley) and stupid perks.
  - Kirth 7y ago
    Seconded. I've seen quite some Belgian and German (tech) companies that don't value good (tech) employees. They'd rather pay slightly below market rate and cheap out on everything. Somehow these companies keep going. People's standards here, are low. Belgian news has an item every half-year where some big shot company boy complains about how difficult it is to get (good) ITers. This gets thinned down to "there's not enough ITers". Reality is that they refuse to pay for the quality employees they NEED, so those work elsewhere/leave the company/work remote.
    - krageon 7y ago
      > "there's not enough ITers" This is the complaint every company I've worked for or met with so far has fielded at me, which is kind of hilarious as they all also unequivocally refuse to pay a reasonable wage.
_Codemonkeyism 7y ago
Same experience at another megacorp, hated it. The cynic in me has the feeling they use this to turn people off from getting reimbursed - the worse the UX and tech the fewer megacorp has to pay for expenses.

windexh8er 7y ago

I will say that rating is likely very close to how I'd rate the company overall during my short tenure there.

GordonS 7y ago

We have to use Concur at the megacorp where I work - it truely is awful. It's slow, clunky, and often just gets in your way. For example, if I attach a receipt, the "receipt is attached" toggle remains off - you still have to manually change it! The "cost allocation" stuff is also an unnecessary waste of time, and things often seem to be off by a penny, which causes Concur to complain and prevents submission. I could go on.. For such a large scale system, I just can't fathom the UX or performance.

twa927 7y ago
For some reason many "enterprise" software products are clunky and buggy. I guess this is because the decision to use the software is made by managers who don't ever use it.
- opsunit 7y ago
  I think it is more to do with the fact that "enterprise" software vendors have done the boring legwork of ticking all of the necessary multi-jurisdiction legal tick-boxes, implement that one insane export format, provide reports required just-so by a given regulator and so-on. The value they provide to the business is outside of the software in that sense.
  - twa927 7y ago
    It's good that the managers care for the higher-level "business" goals, but shouldn't they care for their subordinates more? In the end it also contributes to a business metric - employee happiness. When I was switching a corporate job to a startup job the fact that I switched from a corporate Outlook and a proprietary issue software to GMail and Github made me happier.
    - opsunit 7y ago
      I suppose my point is ultimately that they're not goals, they're requirements, and they are often imposed from the outside by legal or other official bodies. In that context caring doesn't really come into it. In terms of the vendors of shitty enterprise software (and attempting to answer your original question), if you've spent a bunch of time, money and effort making the Venn diagram of certifications and industry accreditations and implementing niche proprietary licensed file formats converge into your product you may not have either the willing, cash, or capability to produce quality software with flavour-of-the-month UX too.
    - dragonwriter 7y ago
      > It's good that the managers care for the higher-level "business" goals, but shouldn't they care for their subordinates more? Ideally, yes; rationally, given the incentives of the concrete eco omic system they exist in, no. Managers work for higher level managers, or at the highest level for capital owners of the business, not for their employees except to the extent that the employees are also capital owners of the business. Managers aren't union reps for their subordinates, they are agents of capital. That's, literally, their job.
      - twa927 7y ago
        This sounds like early 20th century capitalism... I don't think it's very applicable to the current programming industry, where companies have to fight to retain good employees. Also, the top-down structure is no longer preserved within the Agile's "self-organizing teams". So in this landscape I think it's very reasonable to take seriously what programmers think about the given internal software.
- mathattack 7y ago
  Also execs (both buyers and sellers) choose to underinvest over time.
- dragonwriter 7y ago
  > For some reason many "enterprise" software products are clunky and buggy. That's because “selling to enterprises” is a distinct competency from “making a working product”. > I guess this is because the decision to use the software is made by managers who don't ever use it. That's, often, an important part of the problem, but another, perhaps more signficant, part of the problem is that enterprise level constraints on software purchasing decisions are often made by managers (or management workgroups with no single responsible party, or even by directly by state or federal legislation and/or regulation from outside the purchasing agency [0]) who are (or, in the case of groups, consist of people who mainly are) remote in time and org-chart distance from both the decision to purchase software and the actual use of the software. This is perhaps most notoriously true in the public sector, where often the most critical competency for selling to an agency is the ability to navigate the acquisition policies applicable to that agency, which in the most complex of cases involve policies driven by both state and federal legislation and regulation by multiple state and federal control agencies as well as the internal policies of the agency actually doing the purchasing, but any large organization tends to have bureaucratic purchasing rules which, while usually well-intentioned and sometimes legitimately necessary to avoid even worse adverse effects, inadvertently reward vendors with competence in navigating the particular bureaucratic maze over those that lack such competence in a way that can at times outweigh competence in delivery.
- iamatworknow 7y ago
  The company I work for provides software to a very specific enterprise market. One of the most insightful moves the owner/CEO made was starting a business that uses the software right alongside the software company itself (in the building next door). Members of the software company staff do week long rotations working at that business just so they can get a real life feel for actual needs of the market, which has been really beneficial.

ChuckNorris89 7y ago

Low marks on Glassdoor are pretty much the norm in European tech companies, especially in countries like Germany.

ahartmetz 7y ago
Maybe they are actually crap. Many seem to be running a sweatshop model - long hours, low pay (yes really - that's a big difference to Silicon Valley) and stupid perks.
- Kirth 7y ago
  Seconded. I've seen quite some Belgian and German (tech) companies that don't value good (tech) employees. They'd rather pay slightly below market rate and cheap out on everything. Somehow these companies keep going. People's standards here, are low. Belgian news has an item every half-year where some big shot company boy complains about how difficult it is to get (good) ITers. This gets thinned down to "there's not enough ITers". Reality is that they refuse to pay for the quality employees they NEED, so those work elsewhere/leave the company/work remote.
  - krageon 7y ago
    > "there's not enough ITers" This is the complaint every company I've worked for or met with so far has fielded at me, which is kind of hilarious as they all also unequivocally refuse to pay a reasonable wage.

_Codemonkeyism 7y ago

Same experience at another megacorp, hated it. The cynic in me has the feeling they use this to turn people off from getting reimbursed - the worse the UX and tech the fewer megacorp has to pay for expenses.