Political and Cliquey - Team Lead Electronic Arts Employee Review

1) The political and cliquey culture is strong here. Departmental and team condescension towards one another is a common occurrence. If you're accustomed to tight-knit teamwork and cross-functional collaboration, the attitude will be hard to get used to. 2) The pace. What other companies do in 6 months, it takes EA 1 year to do. A big part of that is due to 'managers' talking circles around each other over and over again. A good number of these seem to be former Apple employees running the show in a field they aren't a full expert in. This creates a major challenge when teams are trying to build functioning products, but the people managing can't quite grasp what's happening and ends up steering the whole product in a wayward direction. Ending up with a Frankenstein product that is half-functioning with development teams frustrated and worn out (and have to contend with unhappy end-users) is the norm. After another 6 months, the whole effort is most likely torn apart and requested to be re-done. Thus begins the cycle again.