Santander - anyone contracted there?

[MrMarkyMark]

Did a three month reporting role there many moons ago.

They insisted on doing this using a replicated OLTP schema.
The Spanish consultancy guys decided to load the tables with spreadsheets
Needless to say it took many weeks for any of the data to join together.
We progressed report build with mock data whilst those clowns got their act together.

The Client Co contact was a real nightmare.
In the first week we were below his target and he started flapping.
In the 2nd week we had cleared the back log and then some.
In the 3rd most of our lunches were long as we had completed a months work

[rocktronAMP]

Did a three month reporting role there many moons ago.

They insisted on doing this using a replicated OLTP schema.
The Spanish consultancy guys decided to load the tables with spreadsheets
Needless to say it took many weeks for any of the data to join together.
We progressed report build with mock data whilst those clowns got their act together.

The Client Co contact was a real nightmare.
In the first week we were below his target and he started flapping.
In the 2nd week we had cleared the back log and then some.
In the 3rd most of our lunches were long as we had completed a months work

Glad to hear about your experience. It sounds like I dodged a few bullets from there in the past 24 months!

The rates were lower than expected from £50 to £100 below the national average. So I am not suprised that they struggled and will continue to struggle. It might be convenient for bob culture or people who are close to the vincinity, or need to stay close to MK, because of family issues, but I bet a lot of IT folk would rather just jump on the fast 30 minute Virgin trains to London and get the much higher City banking rates.

[edison]

The shenly wood place is a doss house. Decent restaurant as someone said but there again, there's nothing around to grab a bite to eat so you're stuck.

There's loads of bobs about so rates are driven down. When I was there for the migration to Partenon, there was lots of infighting over who and which team would do what.

Would I work there again? Not a chance.

Rate I was quoted originally by agent was pretty low but I've agreed a significantly higher rate which is a bit more realistic - decent rather than great.

I did wonder about the Milton Keynes location but it's not too bad a journey for me. I'll give it a whirl and see at the interview.

[tvr450]

Ok, so I worked at Produban (Santander IT Division) for a few years, left in 2015.

I was in a technical role. The money was OK, but you worked hard for it. Lots of working days and nights with little thanks and little OT payment. My worst day was working 26 hours straight!

They appear to be making some contractors switch to permie recently, using the calculation that £400/day = £40K PA permie.

They will expect you to work hard and they don't like work-from-home at all.
Parking is tight, especially on Monday morning, security stick notes on your window if you park badly due to desperation.
Shenley Wood building is pretty horrible, excepting the PMO girl on the 2nd floor.
Canteen is OK but varies from day-to-day in food quality.

Not sure I would go back to be honest.

[PermMCCon]

Ok, so I worked at Produban (Santander IT Division) for a few years, left in 2015.

I was in a technical role. The money was OK, but you worked hard for it. Lots of working days and nights with little thanks and little OT payment. My worst day was working 26 hours straight!

They appear to be making some contractors switch to permie recently, using the calculation that £400/day = £40K PA permie.

They will expect you to work hard and they don't like work-from-home at all.
Parking is tight, especially on Monday morning, security stick notes on your window if you park badly due to desperation.
Shenley Wood building is pretty horrible, excepting the PMO girl on the 2nd floor.
Canteen is OK but varies from day-to-day in food quality.

Not sure I would go back to be honest.

That sounds awful, thank god I never worked there. Paying below market rates and trying to force people into permies.

But then again, they do have a VERY good Cost / Income ratio and those are not easy to come by in banking... I think your comments are a good part explanation for it!

[oscarose]

They will expect you to work hard

Next...

[MrMarkyMark]

Next...

To be honest, I certainly didn't, although the rate was less than tasty, the long lunches certainly weren't.
A proper professional working day

The Client Co Manager and other Devs hadn't worked out, or anticipated, the method I used so beating all their estimates was completely childs play really.

[AtW]

I had an offer from their IT side, Produban, but decided to stick where I was. In my circle they tend to be known for chewing their way through people.

The last 15 minutes of my interview were spent basically with the two interviewers saying how bad/stressful/unproductive it was. Surprisingly they then fed back an offer saying that I was as the best candidate they'd interviewed.

If it's at the Shenley Wood site then at least the canteen looked good. Parking was a bit tulip though.

You did not run away...

[fatJock]

You did not run away...

Haha no, I see from agent posts (bloke who got me the interview) that they're still looking for folks. I don't get the impression that many last.

The permie helping the team manager interview me looked well on the way to burn out. In the denial phase, bragging about long hours being something to boast about .....unpaid too.

Oh, and he had a tulip suit, braces and an addiction to his Apple Watch. Reminded me of bloke out of Hustle - the one where they flogged him the insect killer!

[LadyPenelope]

The shenly wood place is a doss house. Decent restaurant as someone said but there again, there's nothing around to grab a bite to eat so you're stuck.

There's loads of bobs about so rates are driven down. When I was there for the migration to Partenon, there was lots of infighting over who and which team would do what.

Would I work there again? Not a chance.

Haha! Me too. Was hired on the Produban side, Spanish team appeared suddenly who were building the exact same thing as UK-based project team.

They also seem to be paying less these days for BA's than they did 10 years ago, but maybe that's just the market.