Great IPs and colleagues, abysimal leadership
Pros
Great and unique IPs in the game industry. Smart colleagues and people that wants to make a difference. Culture that tries to adapt to the Bay Area (food trucks, parties, raffles, flexible work hours, remote work, etc.)
Cons
Many middle and top managers are totally clueless at what they do. They would rather scream, insult and tell you what to do than explain why. Depending on which team you are on, your sense of ownership and pride will be ripped to shred. Your efficiency will go down to almost nothing. Any attempts at doing more than what was requested will be met with fierce resistance, and thinking outside the box is usually frowned upon. Your manager will become your team bottleneck and there is very little you can do about it. Feedback are not welcome and managers become very defensive if you give them. It took me a while to understand that they are actually afraid of being incompetent. The Dilbert principle runs strong in some departments, and sometimes, not strong enough. To be honest, some other teams seem to be better managed on the leadership side, but I can only review my own experience. As an engineer, it felt like such a waste to have this incredible team running at such low efficiency due to the inability of the team leadership to properly communicate the vision, pillars and goals of the team. Instead, everyone was micro-managed from the top which led to frustration to all. The end result is unmotivated and disengaged team. While I wanted to love the company, and I really appreciated my colleagues, management made day to day work impossible to love. During interviews, go with your instincts.
