A good place to work (with some challenges to overcome)
Pros
Avanade takes its commitment to its clients very seriously and provides its project teams the resources needed to do the work. It's refreshing to work again with people who are experts in their field, and Avanade promotes training to ensure people stay experts. In the Seattle region especially, Avanade is committed to developing the talent of junior employees and has created a strong community of people hired directly out of college. These employees have grown their careers and now mentor the next generation of employees. Avanade--at the global level--has committed to hiring more women and inspiring more women to go into STEM fields and careers. Depending on your talent community (department), you can have excellent networking opportunities with the region's leaders.
Cons
Depending on your assigned project, you may find your work too challenging or too boring. A lot of the projects are going in the direction of managed services, which is steady if sometimes very dull work (compared to implementing new technologies for your customer). Conversely, it can be difficult to manage work/life balance if you're traveling every week to a project site -- or if you have a significant number of offshore/after hours calls to run. If you're on a project outside the Redmond office, you may feel like you're stuck out on a raft in the ocean -- disconnected from the day-to-day activities of the majority of the Seattle region. Sometimes the regional leadership team projects an Old Boys Club ethos. This isn't to say there's sexism in leadership, but that who you know (and how frequently you interact with them) can often mean more during annual review time than what you've accomplished on your projects. It can feel much harder to break into the club if you're working on a project that doesn't put you in the aforementioned hub of activities. Career Advisers are often under-qualified to fulfill their roles as mentors/advisers to more junior employees and frequently do not meet with/ignore their responsibilities to their advisees.
