This review is mostly from engineer/researcher perspective. Designers shouldn't shy away from this review.
If you think this is an IT company where you can learn and grow, then you shouldn't join. Blizzard is lacking the incentive and plan to improve its current tech stack.
1. Their infra is extremely behind. The people in power always give the best resources to game designers and knee to whatever designers want, making it impossible to improve.
2. They don't treat their employees well. The compensation is very low. We are talking about 1/2 of what other IT company would pay for the same level of experience/skill. They don't offer stocks. Annual refresh is minimum. Health care plan is minimum supplemented. 401k match is less than 5% (too small for me to remember the exact numbers), and they don't fully vested until 4th year.
3. Because of the lack of attraction to good talents, you will find most ppl here pretty mediocre. You will see that ppl there are two extremes: either ppl land here and leave very soon; or stuck here for tens of years. At first I was mostly impressed by how loyal ppl are, it was until later that I found out those ppl really have no better place to go (again, talking about the engineers and product ppl mostly).
4. Stop expanding so fast. Hire slow and better. More inefficient ppl will only drag good folks down. You should only take a look at how large heroes of storm team is to understand what I'm talking about. It's over 100 and they are still expanding. The game is going no where. Think before you hire...
