Good lesser-known companies for software developers?

January 22, 2006 3:56 PM

What are some small or lesser-known software or IT consulting companies that have a reputation for being good places to work? Fog Creek Software has been mentioned here many times before, and they brag about being able to hire the best developers. What small or lesser-known companies can you think of with similar reputations?
posted by komilnefopa to Work & Money (8 answers total)

I read a case in my HR Management class about SAS and they seemed to be a great place to work if the case is accurate. Great benefits and HR policies.
posted by radioamy at 6:29 PM on January 22, 2006

Fortune magazine annually does a "100 best companies to work for"; SAS ranked number 30 on the list in 2006.

[Dirty little secret: companies that are on the list had to pay an application fee to be considered; no more than a few hundred apply each year. Companies are asked to send surveys to a random selection of employees. The selection of employees, and sending out the surveys, is totally on the honor system. Enron - which made the list for several years - had its HR department fill out the forms in the names of "selected" employees, at least once. Even after that debacle, Fortune has not changed its system. ]
posted by WestCoaster at 8:12 PM on January 22, 2006

See also the Great Place to Work Institute, and the annual Computerworld surveys.
posted by dhartung at 8:26 PM on January 22, 2006

SAS is not a small company by any stretch of the imagination (though they do perennially rank very high on the "good place to work for" list). They have a huge campus in the NC "Research Triangle" that includes shopping amenities (groceries, dry cleaning, etc.) for their employees.
posted by mkultra at 8:04 AM on January 23, 2006

37signals
Dreamhost
TextDrive/Joyent
posted by evariste at 3:17 PM on January 23, 2006

Not sure how you define "small", but a lot of the folks at the place I work (Six Apart), have said their shortlist of places they'd want to work only included places like 37signals, Fog Creek, and Six Apart. I certainly love it.
posted by anildash at 10:01 PM on January 23, 2006

I've had nothing but great times working at Go Daddy. They're not entirely small at 1,017 employees and $200 million in revenue, but they're smaller than most of the big players.
posted by bbrown at 5:44 AM on January 30, 2006

Response by poster: Thanks for the all of the tips! There's definitely some places on the list I'll have to check out.
posted by komilnefopa at 6:31 PM on January 30, 2006