Exploitative business practices
Pros:
None, every step with this company was genuinely unprofessional, disorganized, and objectively terrible.
Cons:
WARNING! Revolt will send real data for the job assessment as a form of free labor. The CEO Jan A. Naidu appears to be fleecing desperate grad students for cheap labor. All interns are recycled after 12 weeks with no opportunities for hire!
I can attest the review on Glassdoor is not fake as Anna Faith, Director of Operations insists. I had a nearly identical experience.
One of the major issues is that Jan clearly lacks critical knowledge about the prediction / analytics methods he is attempting to implement and does not have a clear direction. Jan insists on daily cross departmental scrum meetings and waists lots of time presenting information which is not relevant to many parties in the room. There is a clear lack of understanding of what git repo is for, as he wanted me to upload my code to a large unorganized repo of other students' jupyter notebooks, like, why not just use a cloud drive (OneDrive or Google Drive) in that case? A folder of unrelated individual files ≠ software...
It is now also clear to me that anyone who suggests an approach other than Jan's is terminated without explanation immediately. As an experienced professional new to Data Science this was the most unprofessional experience I've ever had, it reflects poorly on Revolt Battery Technology and the University of Houston.
HR was genuinely the worst I've ever dealt with, contacting me last minute for everything and consistently putting the onus on me to provide documentation which I already provided and is sitting in their inbox, all while not even communicating what company I should expect to get paid from. They were genuinely not concerned that I actually get paid, just that I show up for the daily meetings and be available to schedule immediate 1 on 1's with the CEO Jan A. Naidu. In fact they state this schedule is because you need to "work with your cohort of interns" but since everyone is working separately it seems, like many things in this company, an intentional bait and switch method for disguising what Jan wants.
Tow the line or you're fired! The most unprofessional experience I've ever had with any company, would not recommend to anyone.
Advice to Management:
Jan don't be an immoral person, currently you are objectively taking advantage of many students under the guise of a "good learning experience", while not acknowledging a clear lack of direction and knowledge on your part, this is generally referred to as bad ethics. Learn to be a good faith actor. I certainly learned nothing from this experience except what poor management looks like.
HR, communicate clearly, on time, and with accuracy. Be concerned about whether your employees get paid! Overall, be more professional, I'm not certain how else to say it…