Bungie reviews

All employees but especially women and people of color are routinely told they need to work above their job level to be considered for promotions, and most employees are intentionally hired under leveled and told that this is in order to make them more promotable for their first review cycle. Well, turns out for the last two years of review cycles (every six months) management has been told "Oh, LAST cycle was actually the big promotion opportunity cycle, this one is just a check in." So most people who are brought in under-leveled, and underpaid for their discipline are stuck in a holding pattern with no way upwards unless you're friends with a guy in leadership and can get swapped around between different teams, or work yourself into a burnout oblivion. I have seen multiple cases of gender pay inequity and have heard second hand of multiple bad excuses from HR for why this happens. This was especially frustrating since Bungie constantly likes to remind the public how diverse friendly and supportive they are as a beacon in the industry for change. They have yet to put their money where their mouth is. Then the burnout culture. Deadlines, deadlines, and more deadlines that are always weeks behind, with lofty ideals from studio leadership that is far removed from the production realities. Most people feel like they can't even touch their PTO and get stuck working in terrible cycles until they're about to mentally break. Typically, they get no support from their team leads, and no action is taken to help these individuals work get reallocated to a healthy volume. This is compounded in studio meetings when leadership says "just take your PTO!" and their workers can see no reasonable end in sight. Ultimately, it's a boys club, and not one I'd recommend unless you're desperate.

* You never get to work with the people that made Halo good. * Filled with people who bludgeon each other with multiyear grievances, undercut each other in back channel Team rooms, and belittle anyone attempting to change the status quo. * Time in company matters more than professional experience or the quality of your ideas. Agile failed as most engineers work in rigid time tables without customer feedback. Veterans delivered half-baked features in Witch Queen. * Collaboration is used by veterans to stomp on QA and testers' feedback rather than address it. * Sexist culture. Women struggle to be anything other than tokens on teams, particularly in Destiny 2 where they are outvoted by the white male management. Men are told that their evaluations don't matter because women must be promoted to maintain image. * This IGN article "The Battle for Bungie's Soul" was the tip of the iceberg. The people responsible for issues in this article still follow the same practices to maintain their positions. People no longer at the company were used as scapegoats to avoid responsibility. The HR representative who stepped down from her role was purely symbolic. Her action had no impact on Bungie's dysfunctional culture. * Engineers can't grow and develop new skills due to forced use of ancient technology and outdated engineering practices. * Below average pay and benefits with overly long interview process