Vault’s Verdict

SunGard is a well-known name in the technology sphere—a fact that has both positives and negatives for the firm's employees. While the name can add a degree of luster to future resumes, the fact that the company is best known for its software capabilities can create some difficulties when it comes to selling consulting services to prospective clients. 

In terms of outlook, the firm seems to be on something of an upswing: consultants report steady demand for their services in recent months, albeit with a few complaints about the nature of the projects being more akin to staff augmentation than strict consulting-style engagements. However, any complaints tend to be canceled out by the firm's attention to work-life balance—particularly its willingness to allow employees to work remotely, and to control their own hours. 

Note: This firm did not participate in our survey in 2016. All comments here are from the last time the firm did participate, in 2014. 

Firm Culture 

• "A great place to work if you want to be around other high performers—there is no dead wood at this company!" 

• "This company is great! I intend to stay here for many years to come."

• "If you don't mind being stationary, this is an excellent place to work. While the compensation may not be at the top level possible, the growth opportunities are tremendous."

• "This is a great place to work. It's as simple as that. We are competitive, there's a great work-life balance here, compensation and benefits are great. More importantly you will be challenged, but it's a positive and the knowledge gained here is great!" 

• "Verify that the project you are being brought on for is one that you enjoy."

• "Best for those with strong personal responsibility in response to their own career."

• "We have a great work-life balance compared to some of the bigger consulting firms and we are a very trusted advisor to our clients."

• "It is a job. It is not a career. Great people. Great quality of work in IT delivery. Difficult to differentiate from software divisions and staff augmentation competitors."

• "Grew professionally and personally while successfully delivering on a set of challenging and diverse projects."

• "Complex global business transformation consulting."

• "I'm trusted with the responsibility to do high-profile work for clients and given the flexibility to guide my career to the places I want to go."

• "I am part of an innovative team of industry experts focused on bringing the highest value solutions to customers in the Utility and Energy sector. I have been able to balance the focus on delivery, customer satisfaction and innovation while cultivating a strong and growing internal team of professionals. My knowledge and experience is one of our firm’s great assets and it is recognized and appreciated, as it is within all of our people. It is a privilege not a right to serve our customers."

• "Fellow co-workers are very professional and also very good, honest people—from head of division to folks starting out of school."

 Quality of Life 

• "The best quality of life aspects are that we are trusted to get the job done and there is an understanding that life as a consultant means to travel a lot and work from where you need to—whether you are a billable or internal resource—and I greatly respect that philosophy. The worst aspect, at least from where I sit in NYC, is the crowded office space that makes it difficult to work in team settings or have any privacy."

• "SunGard Consulting Services highly values work-life balance and limits travel. Offices are run regionally. Many staff go home at the end of their work day and do not have the pressures of working through the evening as can be found in many other consulting firms. SunGard Consulting Services has social and charity events that give back the community. There is about 50 percent engagement in these activities."

• "The firm provides an excellent quality of life and allows employees to put precedent on their personal needs before company needs in most cases. While some projects may require additional work outside of the typical 40 hours, employees are usually compensated very well for going above and beyond in these situations."

• "SunGard promotes office events that not only bring the team together, but also get families involved as well."

• "I love the work to life balance here. Yes, there are moments where there is larger demand to get things done, but I know it's not always the case. My interaction with my peers, colleagues and manager are great."

• "Sales pressures are by far the worst single aspect: my daily commute to and from the client is three hours, weekly hours at the client site: 45; billable: 40. Balancing that with family responsibilities while trying to sell enough additional engagements just to make my target bonus numbers is very hard; getting a promotion to the next level seems to be an unobtainable goal no matter the seniority of the position at the client site, quality of work or the level of responsibility."

• "Little to no travel is excellent for work-life balance. However, to achieve a full bonus, one must bill at 100 percent. At 99.9 percent billing the bonus is cut in half."

• "All depends on client. Firm gives lip service, but in the end you're at the client's disposal. SunGard expects work outside of client work, so that impacts QOL."

• "We have a strong, tight-knit office culture that brings the office together to do fun things outside of work. Our people are also very conscious of maintaining a work-life balance for our consultants."

• "Heavy travel without any appreciation for it. It is actually looked down upon. Great leaders and great focus on customers and employees. Too many politics to deal with, often hinders our ability to grow."

 Career Development 

• "Our leaders are constantly and consistently working to improve career development opportunities and I am part of those discussions and initiatives and have heard them be a concern and priority in all of the five years I've been here."

• "People are not valued as people, they are numbers on a spreadsheet, only counting towards how much they can contribute towards total utilization. Very little thought given to what value each individual can actually provide beyond how much money they generate."

• "Best: Good employees that will mentor you. Worst: No choice on type of work."

• "Learning is self-initiated. SunGard Consulting Services offers training during orientation and encourages employees to gain IT certifications during their off the clock time; however, there is no formal training structure for career progression."

• "Career development is mostly self-driven, which is a 'double-edged sword,' so to speak. The best implication of this is that an employee who pushes hard to excel will be adequately compensated. On the other hand, an employee who meets expectations (but never exceeds them) will mostly stagnate."

• "They focus hard on career development as the positive; the review process is very time consuming."

• "Few internal training courses in technology but understandable due to the small size and unique skillsets. A big improvement would be to offer high-demand technology training across SunGard Corporation (not just Consulting Services)."

• "Expectations for each career level are not very well-defined, thus making it somewhat hard to know what is expected of you vs. what you can do to over-achieve."

• "Best: variety of projects, firms, business sectors to learn and experience new things. It is always something new. Worst: the only way to get promoted at the higher level is to demonstrate ability to sustain increase in sales numbers, nothing else matters even though our job is not only to sell engagements but also deliver them."

• "There is a clear development path. However, they do not have a track focused on SME's."

• "Best: Open to funding training in certain industries and practices, including technical training and paying for conferences. Worst: Difficult to find technical engagements currently."

• "Freedom to target areas I want to improve in myself."

• "If you're self-driven, can be some pretty good opportunities. If you're not, then you risk being pigeon holed."

• "The best part of working for SunGard Consulting Services is the counselor/counselee relationship. My counselor has my career interests in mind and helps me to leverage opportunities to succeed and advance."

 Compensation 

• "I think the best aspects of our compensation package include telecommuting and the 401(K) plan, and the worst include only annual increases and promotions unless under very special circumstances."

• "Bonus compensation is only based upon meeting certain utilization numbers, instead of what type of performance each individual may contribute beyond that one single metric."

• "Compensation is 'commission' based and formulaic. The commission is below the line. However, the discretionary pool for practice development is also formulaic but it is above the line. When consultants are focused only on their below the line compensation, they can make a lot more money than focusing on growth and capability development. As a result, there are some very successful sales staff; but a majority of the support staff missed their discretionary bonus."

• "The 401(K) matching is the best part of the package by far. The medical coverage is great but it's only for preventative visits so it has to be used regularly. There are travel benefits for those that travel, but those are relatively few."

• "They pay very fairly and competitively. Only downside is the bonus structure is somewhat complex and, for parts, very subjective."

• "I think the compensation package here is great, and the other non-monetary perks are excellent as well."

• "Base compensation and benefits is good but the bonus provides little motivation, since being off-site for even marketing for only a few days will cause one's bonus to be cut in half."

• "Bonus is weighted heavily towards sales. If you exceed utilization but under perform to sales target, you will be penalized. Hard to achieve sales target when full time at client."

• "Would like more options for the firm to pay for graduate school."

• "Other competing firms have better benefits and perks. My firm provides vacation but less than competing firms, 401(K) but lower match percentage, maternity/paternity leave but much lower than competing firms. Competing firms provide better benefits and have work-life balance programs implemented."

 Outlook 

• "The best aspect is that we have a visionary, trusted, hands on, no ego, fearless leader—that everyone respects—at all staff levels, including the CEO. He is forward thinking and truly the right person for the job, full stop. A weakness in this area is that for many different reasons we have not met our numbers 100 percent, but we are trending in the right direction and it's great to see the solid improvements over time.""Poor leadership, not focused enough on people, too focused on sales and numbers, often forgetting those who have feelings, lives, and personalities."

• "We have a broad array of clients and a reputation among them as being knowledgeable, professional, and efficient. We tend to have a lot of repeat customers and are hiring aggressively because we have such a high demand for our work."

• "We seem to be very heavily dependent on energy projects and certain large accounts. The good is that we provide small and flexible teams so we can handle multiple opportunities at once."

• "Every since I've started at SunGard the core focus has been to grow the organization and position the company in a competitive place in the market. I love the fact that this company is thinking forward and doing its best to succeed. The results are evident and I'm fortunate to be a part of this team."

• "The role we play at our current client is a staff augmentation role. Our company keeps hiring on college students who studied very technical areas in school, only to have them putting together PowerPoint & Visio presentations all day."

• "The incentive structure makes it difficult to dedicate resources to move into new growth opportunities."

• "As long as energy industry is strong there will be plenty of work in Texas. Focus is on sales, no appreciation for technical skills."

• "Clients perceive our firm in the same light as the other business segments of SunGard that are product focused. This adds another obstacle to overcome during sales pursuits, as the clients don't view us as a consulting services firm, but rather an extension of the product groups."

 Hiring Process 

• "Not sure about the interview and callback process but the ideal candidate we are seeing is seasoned, polished and very tech savvy with diverse experience and confidence in their ability—one that will thrive from challenge and appreciate reward after hard work and/or risk." 

• "The quality of incoming candidates is improving."

• "The firm came to my college career fair and held onsite interviews. Two weeks later, I received a phone call asking for a second round interview. The second interview was at the location that I had requested to work at. The second round interviews consisted of three 45 min interviews (technical, cultural, behavioral). This firm is looking for someone who is motivated to learn and regularly involved in the community/school."

• "The interview process usually consists of a phone interview, followed by an in-office interview. Candidates we are interested in tend to receive callbacks rather quickly, but other candidates are not informed for weeks, if at all. Our ideal candidate is someone with a breadth of technical knowledge and excellent soft skills."

• "[Looking for] bright individuals with a strong mixture of business and technology expertise who love challenging problems and the opportunity to be a trusted advisor to our clients."

• "We have a very strong pipeline of candidates and a mature college recruiting process. We put the right people to make decisions on a candidate in the room with them. Each of us takes recruiting and interviewing very seriously. We move quickly on decisions to hire and communicate those decisions to candidates out of for both our investment in the interview process and their time." 

 Interview Tips and Questions 

• "Technical questions, questions about where you see yourself in 5/10 years."

• "What is the systems development life cycle? What are you looking for in a company?" 

• "Describe how you would set up an enterprise database for tracking customer purchases."

• "How do you deal with frustration? What is the source of business ethics?" 

• "They just asked about my experience."

• "Do you like solving complex problems?" 

• "If you join our firm tell me how you will launch your brand within SunGard Consulting Services."

 Diversity and Social Responsibility 

• "The true culture within SunGard Consulting Services is as equally entrepreneurial as it is charitable. As hard as we all work, you always hear about teams in different offices across the globe doing local volunteer work and supporting each other. What's tough is that because we're part of a large company, we can't help fund each other's local fund-raising efforts and instead are encouraged to get behind one of SunGard's bigger initiatives or partnerships (like the Red Cross vs. your high school student's fundraiser), etc."

• "Though weak at the top; SunGard Consulting Services staff is a very diverse company with a large amount of female employees and H1 visa employees from India and China."

• "There is a focus on hiring and mentoring women who join the company right now, but it seems like a new effort because there are relatively few female consultants still. As far as minorities go, there are minorities employed at every level but there has been no specific effort to do so."

• "I think SunGard does very well in the Philanthropy aspects and it's something I participate in. In terms of diversity, I think it's just like any other company. It would be nice to see more military veterans hired here, but typically in our business, unless they have technical backgrounds, it's very unlikely."