Pros
- The culture of the company is second to none. Blizzard genuinely cares about their employees on a very personal level not seen in other places in corporate America. Your boss knows you as a person, knows your strengths and weaknesses, and goes out of his/her way to put you in a place to succeed. Because of the familial nature of the company and the fact that so many are hired from within, employees often do not realize how utopian the work environment is relative to a more traditional company. You're not treated as an expendable cog, but as a human being. That's a novel experience.
- The company values are not a lie - it's not just lip service. In other companies, a phrase like Commit to Quality would be a derided joke. At Blizzard, it's nearly a religion. You know that when you bring up a problem to a coworker, it's not going to get blown off or dumped into the circular file, but will actually be addressed and corrected.
- The organizational structure is incredibly flat and red-tape free. There are anonymous email addresses where you can offer feedback at the very highest levels, and direct communication with supervisors and leadership is viewed as valuable input, not annoyance or frustration.
- The perks are second to none. These include flexible work hours, excellent parties, neat product-related items offered at discount to employees (or free in many cases), incentives to commute in an eco-friendly manner, on-site conveniences of life like a well-stocked gym and a subsidized cafeteria with high-quality food.
- Financial compensation is above-average when all factors are included. It's very easy to look at base salary and write Blizzard off as cheapskates who don't pay their talent enough, but the non-guaranteed portions of the compensation add up very quickly to a sizable boost relative to most other companies.
- Non-political environment. This point will be somewhat controversial given some of the other opinions registered on this website, but for my discipline at least it rings true. Ideas are judged on their merit, costs, and end-user benefit, not the title of the person who came up with the idea or some hidden agenda of a senior/lead. Unlike many other professional environments, you do not have to worry about knives in the dark or other employees sabotaging your work to look better on their own performance reviews. Your output is your own, for better or worse, and that's what you're judged on.
- We make good games that are fun to play. Making a product you believe in is important, and underrated. It is a rare day that you wake up sad to go to work, because you know you're making a very large number of people happy for a living.
Cons
- There will be overtime. With the strong organizational commitment to quality comes the desire to make the games as good as they can possibly be. Given the volatile nature of the industry and the speed with which features and requirements change, this desire often necessitates overtime when putting products out the door.
- Advancement, as with many other companies in the industry, is a somewhat nebulous animal. Evaluating the tasks required to make a game is a tenuous process at best, and the informal nature of the management structure emphasizes that weakness.
