Company: EY
Date: 2021-04-30
Overall rating: 5/5
Employment status: current
Experience level: Junior

A good company to start your career with.
Pros: Better work life balance - The work life balance as compared to EY India and India practice of other Big 4 accounting firms is way better. You will see a lot people taking transfers to GDS from India practice. The best part is you won’t be working on most of the weekends you are there at GDS.
Opportunity for International Travel - a lot of people get to travel internationally for working with some of the best clients. However, you will have to spend some time with the firm before you get these opportunities. You may have to wait for more than 2 years but not necessarily. I have seen people travelling just within 2 - 3 months of joining. Note that the frequency of travel is less (except for a few), therefore, this is another reason why a lot of people prefer GDS over India practice. Personally I would suggest not to keep this as the main reason for joining the firm.
Integration with the India Practice - A lot of teams such as Advisory ( where I worked for some time) are integrated with the Indian firm, this means you will also get to work for Indian clients wherein you will be in client facing role, which I think is pretty cool.
Cab facility - This is definitely one of the main reasons why I liked this firm. They provide cabs at a very nominal price. Which means you will be spared from driving/travelling in super crowded metro and save at least 3 hours a day (if you are travelling from Delhi). You can use this time to read, sleep, complete your work, etc.
Cons: Less Client facing role - Since the firm run on a model of supporting the global teams in their audits/reviews while sitting in India so that the cost of the engagement could be minimized, therefore, there will not be a lot of client facing. However, you will get on a lot of calls with the clients. Most of the people working there do complain about this. Further the firm takes a lot of initiatives to have their employees get exposure of directly working with the client at client location. This includes, integration of GDS with India practice, sending employees on rotation to foreign countries, etc.
Calls - Since GDS works in a remote environment and most of the team members/clients are in a different time zones, therefore, you will be getting on a lot calls at odd hours. I have personally taken calls at around 12 AM. However, the management promotes to not take calls this late in the night. But this is something which is difficult to save yourself from.
Monotonous work - A lot of people complain about doing the same kind of work on a daily basis and start losing their interest. But, if you are one of those who takes initiatives in learning new skills, the management will be more than happy to help you with giving new and different assignments on a frequent basis.