Ad Ops Support Specialist (Contractor)
Pros
For anyone interested in Advertising Operations within start-ups & bigger tech companies, this role provides really good introductory exposure to the general processes & terms. As far as general perks - the company also has free breakfast & lunch with 3 different cafeterias & a huge variety of food (which obviously doesn't hurt). To be transparent, I think just having the title "Twitter" listed on my resume was the most I gained from this job (which is saying a lot because I worked there for a year).
Cons
Management wise – I think there’s a pretty strong lack of communication & clarity throughout the Ad Ops department on a lot of different things. Going into this role, I assumed that there would be a very in-depth few weeks of training on the entire system of Twitter’s Ad Ops Department, as well as the products they supported. Instead, it was turned out to be 2 days of very general/vague Powerpoint slides, accompanied by the popular slogan “just mess around with it”. After those 2 days of training, it’s like they just assume you’ll learn everything else on your own. This may work for some people, but definitely didn’t seem to be the most productive method in my opinion. Since I started, I think the training process has improved with new Videos they’ve implemented, but I think there’s still a really difficult learning curve for people coming into the role largely caused by the training process not being as thorough as it can be. Managers & Superiors will often say you can always ask them if you have questions, but from my personal experience, I sometimes felt like it became obvious when you broke past their patience level with one too many questions. And again, I think the need for new people to ask so many questions in the first place could be prevented with a much more thorough training process. As far as the culture of the Office, I think there’s one gigantic elephant in the room: the Contractor vs Full Time Employee (FTE) distinction. Going into this role, you begin as a Contractor employee, meaning you work full time (40 hours per week) but you’re paid hourly (rather than salary) & don’t receive as many benefits. From my own time here, I think I feel pretty confident in saying that the majority of people really don’t want to be a Contractor employee. Most (if not all) people would prefer the FTE title if eligible. However, it never feels like anyone in Management is proactively looking at your potential & recommending you apply to specific FTE roles. They never mention any current FTE openings or offer any constructive feedback about what’s needed to be an FTE. You really have to do it 100% on your own. They estimate that around 1/3 of employees eventually become eligible for conversion to Full Time, but I only noticed a very small select few that this occurred for during my time there. Speaking from my own personal experience – I only received positive feedback on my work during my time there, but was still never recommended an opening for an FTE role or personal advice for how to progress professionally. This sometimes just made it feel like you were working a thankless job, where no one was really noticing what you were doing. And a lot of the FTE work was 100% in the scope of Contractors to be able to perform once given sufficient training. One could even argue that some of the work processes you do as a Contractor are just as challenging as the FTE work. Thus, it essentially creates a feeling where the work space is very clique-based dividing Contractors & FTEs. Management frequently say that they appreciate your work & everything you do, but in the same breath will explain that only FTEs are eligible for certain perks/outside of work events.
