Best Places To Work In IT

jcatcw writes "Computerworld's annual summary of the best places to work in IT lists companies that excel in five areas of employment: career development, retention, benefits, diversity, and training. According to the scorecard, the top five retention methods are: competitive benefits; competitive salaries; work/life balance; flexible work hours; and tuition reimbursement. Of the top 100 companies, 64 expect the number of U.S.-based IT staffers to increase in 2007, on average by 7%. Here is the whole list. The top three are Quicken Loans, University of Miami, and Sharp HealthCare."

Comments

The list skews to larger corporations

[hellfire]

Frankly, I've always enjoyed in smaller companies, because the beauracracy is far less annoying and you can be more personable with the people in the company. They never really include those companies, because if they actually tried, they'd have thousands of companies to interview and it would take too much time. But if they really wanted a list that made sense they'd include smaller businesses. Expand the definition a little more and stop making such a big deal about being a huge corporation.

Nothing on that list for me...

[Tomy]

Maybe my standards are different, but the companies on that list don't seem very interesting.

It reminds me many years ago ('97) when I and a coworker decided we had had enough of the company we were working for, and decided to make a top ten list of companies we wanted to work for. Both of us landed jobs with our number one choice, but our top ten lists were very different. Mine was a list of coolest companies to work for, and mostly startups (Cygnus Solutions being at the top of my list), and his were more "nicest" companies to work for (SAS being at the top of his list, they have a 35 hour work week, pianist in the cafeteria, gyms, etc).

Perks are great and all, but if the work is not intellectually challenging, or just patience-challenging, and I'm not pushing the envelope, I'm going to be bored out of my skull and not improving my skills, which is a terrible way to spend almost one third of your life.

Exactly what groundbreaking technologies are being developed at a loan website, besides finding new ways to get past my spam filters?

Re:Nothing on that list for me...

[Anonymous Coward]

The only perk and benefit I want is more money. Don't try and distract me from shitty pay that has been artificially reduced by unfair injection into the workforce by foreign labor by paying me less and giving me a gym membership. Just give me more fucking money. I'm there to work. In exchange for money. It's not a fucking barter system and I'm not in kindergarten.

Re:Nothing on that list for me...

[Bucc5062]

there comes a point where one discovers that a job is a means to an end, and not the means. I used to live for the next project, the cool new "thing". If you work in corporate USA that moment is so rare is is better to try for the lottery. Find somethng outside of work and life for that. Company X, the best place in the world to work, will can your ass the moment the numbers do not add up for keeping you.

Start up a company and one day you'll experience the moment when you need to "downsize" and those that had the rose colored glasses will get them stripped off their eyes.

I've spent 28 years in the IT industry, from mainframes, to minis, to Client Server, and what I have learned the most is that the love of a woman far outways a fucking promotion, the joy of doing something you enjoy far outways making the boss happy on Sunday fucking afternoon, that taking time for ones self has a better life expectancy then dieng a slow death for the fucking "Company".

Best places to work for? I had two and they got sold, chewed up and turned into shit holes, so please stop thinking that dragging you're ass to a cube every day, even if they had piano playing in the lobby is going to bring some sort of satisfaction in life. Google is no better no worse then the sweat shop in china. They just give you shinier trinkets to distract you.

Six months ago I rescued a horse from possible auction to slaughter. Today she is healthy, happy, and helping me learn to ride. The job helps me help her have a better life. That is more real, more a sense of accomplishment then pleasing some exec in an irovy tower. Piano bars, flex time, treats tossed from on high as our mouths hang open...slight of hand. To quote Mr Heston "Soylent green is Man"... Better to live outside of the job then think it will define you.

There is not best place to work other then that which fills the soul, and makes us feel like we did goo that day. a janitor may be a king compared to most IT professionals.

Re:Do people take these seriously?

[StarvingSE]

This is truly another Survey of Dubious Quality (tm). If they wanted to take real measurements of retention and employee satisfaction, they would ask the top 1% of the talent at said companies. Why is Google, Microsoft, IBM, and all the other big players in the industry? Not a single one is on the list, yet they continue to attract, hire, and keep the best talent.

There is no way job at Quicken Loans is better than Google or Microsoft by any stretch of the imagination.

Re:Do people take these seriously?

[twiddlingbits]

you may not like the things they make but how does that invalidate they may have a Great IT department that people actually ENJOY working at? That's really really bad logic.