Pros
- Brilliant Teammates: WillowTree has done an incredible job of attracting and retaining the best talent I've seen in the industry. My colleagues are some of the smartest and nicest people I've come across and I feel very fortunate to work with them. - Team Autonomy: WillowTree embraces a bottom-up leadership philosophy where teams are empowered with total control over their projects. Leadership's role is much more focused on supporting project teams rather than managing them. This autonomy creates a sense of ownership and pride within the team that can't be replaced. The outcomes are happy teams and happy clients. - Challenging Projects: WillowTree builds mission-critical products for clients and is a premium provider in the space. Clients don't come to us with easy or boring projects. Every project I've worked on here has been challenging for different reasons. Every day, I get to collaborate with really smart people to solve really tough problems. - Investment in Innovation: Since I've joined, WillowTree has made a considerable effort to invest in innovation-related initiatives. I've loved seeing investment in both open-source projects (e.g. Vocable AAC) and innovation partnerships with clients (e.g. Voice) in our Durham office. Our teams are uniquely positioned to innovate, so I hope to see more of this. - Engaged Leadership: The Exec team at WillowTree is fantastic. They're always looking for ways to improve the experience of working at WillowTree. They're always open to feedback. They live our core values every day and lead by example. - Transparent Communication: Open and honest communication is huge here. Positive feedback is echoed across the company with regular shoutouts and kudos coming from every level. Constructive feedback is handled the right way, in private face-to-face 1:1 conversations. As I write this review in April 2020, I've been really impressed with how transparent our leadership team has been about addressing the COVID-19 crisis and its impact to our business. Honest, decisive leadership during this highly uncertain time has been refreshing and reassuring. - Belief in Learning & Development: Everyone at WillowTree has a growth mindset. There's significant investment in delivering high-quality training and learning materials to teams. L&D is viewed as an opportunity here, not a checkbox as I've seen at other organizations. There's a deep understanding that WillowTree has to develop talent and help its employees grow as people in order to thrive as a company.
Cons
- Burnout Happens: Due to the caliber of people we hire and sometimes unrealistic deadlines projects are under, I've seen people overwork themselves trying to meet an impossible target. WillowTree is generally supportive and acknowledges that nobody wants burnout, that it leads to lower quality output and voluntary attrition - all very bad things. My experience in the tech industry has taught me that burnout happens (even at WillowTree) and the most important thing we can do is monitor for it, minimize the chances it happens, and protect teams with support and shelter when it does happen. I'm optimistic that WillowTree's rollout of the new branch structure along with recurring anonymous surveys will help mitigate burnout here in the future. - Growing Pains: Since I've joined, our Durham office has doubled in size, moved to a new (beautiful) office across town, WillowTree has opened a New York office, and we've also added an office in Ohio through a merger. This is a lot of stress to put on an organization and it can be challenging to maintain culture in the face of so much rapid change. I think the branch structure will be a steadying force here. I've come to embrace that parts of working at WillowTree will feel like a roller-coaster ride, but I realize that isn't for everyone. - Allocation Can Be Bumpy: This is a reality in client services. There's always a rush to spin teams up for new projects and the whole process can feel chaotic. The highest performing teams are often the most stable, so it's important we get allocation right. I'm encouraged to see that as we've grown, we continue to decentralize allocation. I think branch leadership teams are well suited to make allocation a smoother process overall.