|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Apr 3rd, 2021 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
Software Engineer
|
Berlin
|
|
The first address for top C++ developers
|
|
* Friendly, very smart and talented colleagues (from whom you can learn)
* Diverse and challenging tasks
* Enough time to get all the details right, no deadlines
* Family-friendly, flexible working hours, you can take a day off on short notice
* Very efficient management, no politics, no nonsense
* Very successful product
* Very low communication overhead
* Very high quality code base, you easily find examples of how things should be done
* Everyone is welcome to improve everything, no code ownership
* Engagement in improving C++
|
There are reasons, things are the way they are at think-cell. Hence, I am not advocating for "fixing" the following things:
* No remote work (it was/is allowed during the pandemic).
* Every change is reviewed and approved by our CTO Arno, which can be frustrating especially at the start.
* Demanding:
- Arno is actually quiet good at spotting all kinds of flaws in your code and you obviously have to address all of them.
- There is almost no external documentation of the code, which means you have to actually understand a lot of code to get things done.
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
0.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
Keep up the good work
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "deu", "userJobTitle": "Human Resources", "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 3166756, "responseDateTime": "2021-04-16T04:10:28.26", "translationMethod": null, "response": "Dear Employee,\n\nwe are happy to read this review :)\n\nJulia, HR Manager", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Feb 22nd, 2021 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
Software Engineer
|
Berlin
|
|
Great company, great team and great C++ code
|
|
- Very high code quality, detailed review process with strong attention to details.
- No pressure of deadlines - the priority is always to implement features in the best way.
- Colleagues are knowledgeable, passionate and friendly. It is easy to get help. The technical discussions are open and it is easy to convince others with arguments.
- Very well designed base software framework with all the new C++ features pushed to the limit. I have learned more about C++ in think-cell than in any other company.
- Very good monitoring system which reports problems at client installations.
- Very good work-life balance.
|
As mentioned in other reviews, some people might find it difficult to work in the environment without structured team and project management. For me, that was the best part of working at think-cell.
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
0.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
0.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "deu", "userJobTitle": "Human Resources", "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 3166740, "responseDateTime": "2021-04-16T04:00:23.337", "translationMethod": null, "response": "Dear Employee,\n\nThank you for the time you invested in your review. We are happy to hear that you have a positive experience.\n\nWe wish you all the best!", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Jan 31st, 2021 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
Software Engineer
|
Berlin
|
|
A hiring failure and a toxic workplace
|
|
think-cell has very high standards for their employees.
|
However, their hiring process is simply a failure. They offset the risk of hiring people that will not meet their very high technical and behavioral expectations by hiring everyone on a one-year contract and firing most of these contractors. In a sense, they hire people for an extremely long interview process and these employees get months of constant uncertainty about their future and immense pressure to perform.
Beware of their claims of very low turnover: they conveniently only consider how long employees that have been with them for a few years end up staying. If you were to include everyone who signs a contract and starts working, the turnover would be one of the highest in the industry.
Everyone reports to the CTO. He also does all of the code reviews. As a consequence, the CTO is often unavailable. The worst part (that was already mentioned in virtually all of the existing reviews) is that he is loud, disrespectful, and has no emotional self-control. He gets nervous during reviews when he can’t understand something or when he finds defects in the code he’s reviewing and will shout at his employees in public. He will also never apologize. This doesn’t improve with tenure: employees that have been at think-cell for a very long time still get shouted at.
They make the grass look much greener than it really is when making you an offer. You have been warned. Other reviewers did a great job at pointing out the mental health toll of an engineering role at think-cell, be sure to not underestimate this.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
0.0
|
NEUTRAL
|
0.0
|
NO_OPINION
|
11.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
1.0
|
2.0
|
3.0
|
1.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "deu", "userJobTitle": "Human Resources", "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 3018371, "responseDateTime": "2021-02-11T07:23:49.68", "translationMethod": null, "response": "Dear colleague,\n\nReading your scathing review saddens me, especially because it is obviously authentic. I\u2019ve been employed at think-cell for 18 years now. While I cannot simply dismiss your criticism, I do have a different perspective, which I'm hoping might be helpful to provide some context.\n\nFirst off, according to your review, you are still working at think-cell. If you are, please talk directly to our employers and share your concerns. In my experience, they are absolutely willing to be helpful. You are also welcome to talk to me any time. As you have probably guessed already, my name is Volker, and if you work at think-cell, you\u2019ll know how to get in touch.\n\nLet\u2019s assume you tried this and for some reason, talking didn\u2019t help. Trying to put myself in your shoes, if I'd find myself in a place that doesn't work for me to the degree that I'd call it \"toxic\", I think I'd go looking for other places where the \"chemistry\" is better for me. Given that you passed think-cell's rigorous hiring process, you could surely find another job. If you haven't left, I wonder if there is something to like about think-cell after all?\n\nWhich brings up the hiring process itself. I know that this is taken very seriously at think-cell, which is why (as you know) all interviews are conducted by the company owners, who will also be your supervisors. The entire hiring process is carefully designed and tweaked over many iterations with one main focus: To save you (and the company) from the situation you apparently find yourself in now. You may not have noticed, but your interest is actually perfectly aligned with think-cell's in this regard: There is absolutely no point in hiring someone who is not going to stay, for whatever reason. It's the purpose of the hiring process to avoid exactly this. To this end, the hiring process tries to be representative of the actual job. Apparently, it failed in your case. If you have suggestions how this could be improved, please let us know.\n\nWhile I do see some valid points in your review, I cannot relate to your paragraph about our CTO being unavailable and without emotional self-control. You are right, at any given point in time, he is talking to some developer, precisely because he makes himself available as much as physically possible. To get a slot in his schedule, just shoot him an email and he will usually get around to talk to you within the same day. This isn\u2019t a secret and as far as I know it works well for everybody (except you, obviously). Also, his communication is very direct and I understand that it can be received as disrespectful at times. On the other hand, you can talk to him openly and directly, too, and if your arguments hold water, then he won't hesitate to change his opinion and recognize your point. If he gets impatient, in my experience that's because I insisted on an argument that wasn't coherently structured.\n\nOf course, if you feel the way you describe it, then that's totally legitimate and even my best moderating efforts won't change a thing. To me that is indication that, indeed, the chemistry is just wrong between the two of you, which can happen between people, I guess. Anyway, we take your review as a chance to reflect upon and improve the work culture at think-cell.\n\nI wish you all the best for the future, at think-cell or elsewhere.\n\nVolker", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Dec 1st, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
Senior Software Engineer
|
Berlin
|
|
you're not encouraged to speak about what's on your min
|
|
- Thorough code reviews, usually done by the CTO
- You're supposed to find the best solution for technical problems
- There's time to actually implement the best solution
|
- You're not being people-managed at all, and you're not encouraged to speak about what's on your mind. No regular 1:1s with anyone. I wouldn't say there isn't any room for talking about non-technical issues, you just need to make that room yourself, have the courage to bring up whatever problem you have, and do that in an atmosphere that does not really encourage doing that.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
-1.0
|
DISAPPROVE
|
6.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
3.0
|
1.0
|
1.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
No regular 1:1s with anyone and that is not a "high standard" elsewhere.
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "deu", "userJobTitle": "Human Resources", "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 2992591, "responseDateTime": "2021-02-02T01:30:10.687", "translationMethod": null, "response": "Dear Former Colleague,\n\nThank you for taking the time to write this review. It is very similar (in part, even word for word) to a review written on April 7, 2019. Did you write that review as well? You can find a detailed response from our CTO Arno to that review below.\n\nWe wish you all the best!", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Jan 15th, 2020 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
Software Engineer
|
Berlin
|
|
Good Company
|
|
Great Team, Motivating, Salary and Perks
Berlin!
|
Nothing to add really at the moment
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
2.0
|
4.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
0.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
May 3rd, 2019 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
Senior Software Engineer
|
|
|
People who work at think-cell don't look any further
|
|
My current colleagues with permanent developer positions have done a marvelous job in their glassdoor reviews, describing all the reasons why they like working at think-cell. I can simply subscribe to what they said, and I do not want to repeat it all.
When my brother worked in the think-cell office for a day (completely unrelated job, merely using a desk and wifi for his own work), he told me afterwards that he liked the friendly and relaxed yet focused working atmosphere. I strongly agree.
Just consider: think-cell has a reputation for an extraordinarily rigorous hiring process and for extremely high coding standards. With think-cell on your resumé it should not be hard to get other, highly desirable and reputable C++ jobs. But the fact of the matter is: Who works at think-cell, stays at think-cell. In more than ten years, I have seen less than a handful of developers leaving from a permanent position at think-cell. It took me a while to realize that there is no better job for me in the world than my current position, but at some point I just stopped looking for other jobs.
Of course this means that you get to know your colleagues quite well. It does not mean that we are all big family, spending all our work and spare time together. Everybody has their private lifes, many have family. Some share similar interests and others don't. But it does mean that when I get to work, there is not a single person I try to avoid. Some are closer to me than others, but everybody is open-minded, approachable, and ready to help. They come as they are, and they treat each other with respect. It is a pleasure to meet them every day.
|
No formal career opportunities, since there is no middle management. If you think about it, the absence of the latter is actually a plus... ;) Very good self-organizational skills are required (for the same reason: you are your own middle-manager almost from day one).
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
10.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
3.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
You are brilliant in coding but your actual core competence is building a team that lasts. Please keep doing so!
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
20.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Apr 7th, 2019 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
Software Engineer
|
Berlin
|
|
Emotionally challenging
|
|
- No meetings
- No deadlines
- No micromanaging or management-nonsense of any kind
- Challenging work
- Good pay
- Friendly and truly competent colleagues
- Very high code quality standards
- Thorough code reviews, usually done by the CTO
- You're supposed to find the best solution for technical problems
- There's time to actually implement the best solution
|
- You're not being people-managed at all, and you're not encouraged to speak about what's on your mind. No regular 1:1s with anyone. I wouldn't say there isn't any room for talking about non-technical issues, you just need to make that room yourself, have the courage to bring up whatever problem you have, and do that in an atmosphere that does not really encourage doing that.
- Stressful code reviews by the CTO (reviews are done in person). Mistakes are often okay, but when they are endangering the stability of the product or falls in some other "unacceptable" category the reviews got very heated and emotional, to the point where I feared those reviews and avoided them for as long as I could. To be clear, on a technical level the CTO was usually correct, and also he didn't get insulting. Nevertheless, on an emotional level some of the reviews were quite challenging for me.
- Sometimes an employee was shouted at for multiple minutes because of some unacceptable mistake. No apologies of any kind were made afterwards as far as I know. Again, no insults, but I'd describe it as emotional abuse nonetheless, especially since it's not talked over later.
- The default is 42h/week excluding breaks and 20 days of vacation per year. During negotiations, I asked for 35h, which was reluctantly accepted only if we put into the contract that both parties target 42h in the future.
- No collaboration with colleagues. I got my tasks from the CTO, reported to the CTO, and did the work more or less alone. Apart from the CTO, I talked about technical stuff with colleages once every few days at most.
- Sometimes the CTO would willingly explain parts of the code that were unclear to me, and sometimes I was told harshly to not give up that fast and figure it out myself, which left a bad taste especially when I had figured out stuff for the last few days and asked for the remaining unclear bits. I became very reluctant to ask for help.
- Very little automated testing, no static analysis, no linters, no automatic enforcement of the very strict coding standards. Also it's not like there's an "ok to make mistakes" culture, you need to make up for all of that with lots of discipline.
In general, it's a place where very little if not zero attention is paid to the human side of things. The existing engineers are doing fine (apparently, I haven't talked to them about this). But to get truly comfortable there, you'll need to be emotionally thick-skinned enough to not mind strong negative emotions directed at you and not mind the occational shouting at others.
I was fired after half a year because I didn't develop a deep enough understanding for some of the technical problems I was given, which is fair. The days following my lay-off I was as happy as I haven't been for a long time, only then realizing how stressful my time there had been.
|
-1.0
|
NEGATIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
52.0
|
2.0
|
3.0
|
1.0
|
3.0
|
4.0
|
3.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
Apply the high standards you have on the codebase to human interactions within your company.
|
0.0
|
[{"countHelpful": 0, "languageId": "eng", "userJobTitle": "Human Resources", "__typename": "EmployerResponse", "originalLanguageId": null, "id": 2103692, "responseDateTime": "2019-05-29T07:23:45.29", "translationMethod": null, "response": "Dear former colleague,\n \nThank you for taking the time to write a detailed review, pointing out many of the positive aspects that make think-cell a unique and pleasant place to work at, including \u201cno meetings, no deadlines, no management-nonsense of any kind\u201d. This is how I intend it to be, and I am glad that your experience reflects that. I am sorry to hear that, despite these and other benefits, you did not have a good experience at think-cell.\n \nEvaluating a new employee and deciding whether to keep her or him for a permanent position is challenging. This evaluation process, in particular when I am leaning towards the \"won't keep\" side, is bound to be emotionally less than ideal. On one hand I do not want to put the new employee under undue emotional stress, on the other hand I have to convey a sense of urgency to perform better, so she or he has a fair chance to show the best of her or his abilities before making my decision. For example, sometimes I may want to see how much the employee can glean from a given code base, without being given outside help.\n \nEvery project a new employee embarks on has a primary mentor, either me or another experienced developer. If you only stayed for a short period, you probably did not get beyond your first project, which is likely the reason you kept working with me rather than other developers. Still, groups of developers go to lunch every day and they publicly invite everyone who might be interested to join. Usually, there is also an organized lunch to welcome new hires, which is meant to get you in touch with your colleagues.\n \nRegarding static analysis, we tried some of the leading products, but with the very functional-style code which makes heavy use of our range library, the products produced tons of false positives, but nothing meaningful. We tried Clang Format on our code, but even after modifying its code to better fit our coding style, found that formatting contains too much semantics to be made automatic. There are only a few coding guidelines which are well lintable, like adding exception specifiers to all functions or using struct instead of class. The rest, like inlining single call functions, are more structural and I have trouble finding a linter for them. We do have a dedicated developer refactoring the code to the latest coding guidelines, so adherence of the code is very good. It is easy to find an example of how things should be done.\n \nIn the by now 17 year history of the company, only 2 developers made the decision themselves to leave the company, everyone else is still here. So think-cell may be somewhat unusual, but I still think it is a very good place to work at.\n \nI wish you good luck for your future.\n \nArno", "responseOriginal": null, "countNotHelpful": 0}]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
No
|
|
1.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Nov 14th, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
Software Developer
|
Berlin
|
|
an ideal place for c++ geeks
|
|
- The owners are really good at their jobs and it means the company is on the right track.
- The hierarchy is flat so there are no middle management issues. The owners can directly see your contribution and improvement.
- You have time to figure out the best solution and write elegant code.
- The colleagues are really smart and friendly.
- The company pays one of the best salaries in Germany to top developers.
- The company hosts many technical events and great company dinners/parties.
|
The hiring process could be very difficult for some people including myself. I think it is normal for a successful small company because everybody counts. But the owners really want to make more successful hires. I was with telecommunication background and not very experienced in c++11 when I was on board but the CTO made a very good plan for me and the tasks are achievable. You can make some errors but you need to improve fast. You will have more space once you have proven yourself.
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
14.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
2.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Nov 3rd, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
|
Berlin
|
|
Great colleagues, flexible employer, very successful product
|
|
Great team with exceptional colleagues who are a pleasure to work with. Very friendly atmosphere. We do a lot of things together outside of work. Going out for dinner, the movies or doing sports together.
think-cell is very family friendly. They have always been super accommodating and flexible when I needed to change my working hours due to my partner's work and our growing family.
The product is super successful and very well liked among our clients, which feels great. That results in an extremely competitive salary and very attractive working hours.
Work at think-cell is challenging in a good way. Standards are high and so is our software quality, but we always get the time we need to do things the right way.
We work mostly independently on many different kinds of problems. There is no code ownership in the traditional sense and you can expect to work on very different kinds of problems and on different parts of the product.
Everyone is responsible for the entire product and all suggestions for improvement are welcome and will be listened to.
|
think-cell is not a good fit if you are not sufficiently self-organised to work on problems that are so large that you have to split them into manageable pieces.
think-cell is a great place to learn but new employees have to be very good in problem solving and structured, logical thinking already. It is not a place where you can grow into the role of a Software engineer.
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
1.0
|
APPROVE
|
9.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
5.0
|
4.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
20.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|
|
private:think-cellsoftwaregmbh-2
|
https://www.glassdoor.com?employer_id=710083
|
Nov 2nd, 2017 12:00AM
|
Open
|
Open
|
think-cell
|
|
|
|
I enjoy my job but there are problems
|
|
There is time to do things the right way, rather than "good enough for now".
Single, long-lived desktop product.
Good feedback from users via customer support and automated error reporting.
No meetings: information is shared one-on-one or in small spontaneous groups.
Real offices (not cubicles) with two or three devs in each.
Some devs work part-time.
|
Code review is mostly done by technical lead so there's not much chance to develop that skill.
Technical lead loses his temper and shouts at people - feedback is usually of a high quality but sometimes devolves into disrespectful shouting. This is not a "heated conversation" between equals but a manager shouting at his employees, and it is harmful to the quality of work and learning because it makes people nervous rather than open.
|
|
|
1.0
|
POSITIVE
|
0.0
|
NO_OPINION
|
73.0
|
3.0
|
4.0
|
4.0
|
3.0
|
5.0
|
2.0
|
|
710083
|
Open
|
Get your temper under control and talk to others with respect so that they can be open with you and learn from you.
|
0.0
|
[]
|
REGULAR
|
No
|
Yes
|
|
0.0
|
|
|
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
Apr 29th, 2021 02:41PM
|
think-cell Software GmbH
|
|
|