Digitaria Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Digitaria full-time for more than a year

Pros – The people are so smart and talented
People are so friendly
There is no such thing as "no such thing" - anything is possible
Management is inspiring
Workspace is collaborative - and the view of Petco Park...speechless
Lots of events and one off gatherings - biking, working out, weekend activities

Cons – I am so happy there - the energy is so positive. Nothing negative at present time.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Digitaria full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - Entrepreneurial culture -- if you want something, go get it; pitch your idea to management.
- Great brands and interesting projects.
- Relatively young, fun crowd that enjoys working and playing hard.
- Nice, friendly people with no ego (about 80%).
- Producers are great.

Cons – - Ex-founders of company make decisions behind closed doors and do not communicate changes to the company in an appropriate or timely manner.
- Hiring practices could be more thorough and candidates could be vetted with a more rigid process; due to high growth, sometimes sacrifices are made to get a body through the door.
- Promotions / salary increases are rarely results-based and are more likely to occur if you are close with your boss or go to happy hour with your boss.
- Salaries are way below industry average.
- Zero onboarding process because the agency is so chaotic. Production process is extremely disjointed and poor.
- Not much creative work, it's mostly production work so fairly straightforward and boring.
- Work/life balance is very skewed... towards work. If you have a family, forget it, unless you are rich enough to have a full-time parent stay home or a live-in nanny.

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on employee morale and trying to keep valued employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Digitaria full-time for more than a year

Pros – Exciting projects, prestigious clients, amazing office culture, super talented and fun coworkers, sweet digs, cool bosses.

Cons – The common issue with busy agencies: work/life imbalance.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Digitaria full-time for less than a year

Pros – - The people they hire are generally very cool
- The office space is great in that it has floor-to-ceiling windows and overlooks the baseball park

Cons – - They will tell you that everyone works a 40-hour week and they'll monitor your workload, but no one actually does - everyone works FAR more hours than that
- It is a true Production Shop - very little creative involved
- The Producer role manages at least 75% of every project (which comprises the roles of Account Mgr, Resourcing, Traffic, Finance, and Producer)
- There is no "onboarding" process - it's a checklist of all the things you need to know, and it's up to you to seek out people (who are all swamped with work) to train you on things on the list
- It can be cliquey among the staff
- They are unwilling to change their processes or learn from new employees suggestions from their previous experiences of what's worked at other agencies
- Resourcing for projects is literally done in a "swap meet" for resources every week
- The main focus is on being billable - like a law firm
- There is serious redundancy among all of the documentation they require for each project
- The office has become overcrowded, which detracts from the beautiful space
- They give minuscule raises, so you need to fight for an increase
- They spend an obscene amount of money on holiday gifts and a holiday party, but if you polled the employees they would much rather raises/money in their pockets
- They use gmail for their corporate email - very limiting and unprofessional (in my opinion). They do not want to pay for the licenses for Outlook.
- It is a fight for conference room space when you have meetings
- They require padding in their estimates to the client in a manner that is probably borderline illegal
- Some of the managers can be quite dismissive, making you feel stupid because you're not picking things up quickly enough (even though, as stated above, they have no formal training process)

Advice to Senior Management – - Take more of an interest in your lower-level employees - LISTEN to what they have to say, and make them feel comfortable enough to be honest
- Develop an actual "onboarding" process to train new employees on your custom-developed software, and allow them at least 2 weeks to learn how things work by shadowing other employees and not having to worry about being billable
- Spread the work around so it's evenly distributed among the team
- Reduce the redundancy of paperwork and documentation

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Digitaria full-time for less than a year

Pros – There are some very smart/go-getter individuals. It has a rather unique office style and location. A few individuals seem content. There is some effort to improve morale, but it seems insufficient or ineffective.

Cons – Terribly inept management, critical and competitive peers, minimal work-life balance, demanding hours and expectations, deserving individuals are not recognized, close-minded, etc. "Open/Collaborative Workspace" is distracting and chaotic. Overall morale is rather low. Most employees seem to be open to new opportunities outside of the organization. Some issues with the working relationship of JWT that acquired Digitaria.

Advice to Senior Management – Cut dead weight and promote those deserving. Think of ways to improve morale and to show appreciation or you'll continue to lose more great employees. Companies like Gartner and Edelman both made the Top 50 Best Companies to work for... check out their strategies.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Digitaria full-time

Pros – • There's some really young and talented people within the agency.
• Fun atmosphere around the office– very casual for the most part.
• Great place to pay your dues as an inten/jr. designer to learn the production side of the business.

Cons – • Not a place to be creative anymore, and has turned into a complete production shop for JWT.
• They continue to hire unqualified people to only fire them without notice shortly there after.
• High turnover.
• Promotion is slow/never happen unless you become drinking partners with directors/ powers that be.
• Very unorganized at the top, with many fires to put out.
• If you're looking to grow as a designer beyond the jr. level, I would look elsewhere.
• Although it's generally a cool atmosphere with your team, the culture is rather poor around the office.

Advice to Senior Management – Realize the talent that you have in front of you– the talent pool in your area is not endless unfortunately. Growth needs to be managed, and calculated– with a goal to grow as much as possible as soon as possible by any means– culture will invariably suffer.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Digitaria full-time for more than a year

Pros – Amazing entrepreneurial culture with some of the best people you'll ever meet
Fun, friendly staff that works hard and plays hard
Mind blowing ideas with flawless execution
Inspirational leadership at executive level
Top notch Production/Delivery
Executive management is always open to new ideas and will let you run with them
Supportive staff let's you create your own career, if you deliver.

Cons – Acquisition by JWT made many things difficult including promotions, salary increases, and ability to hire staff
Aspirational vision can quickly and greatly exceed current state and resources available to deliver
Salaries far below industry norms
50-60 hour weeks are the norm

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Digitaria

Pros – Young and hip co-workers, reasonably competent staff in most departments, lots of company-building events, flexible hours, management is approachable, shiny new office by ballpark.

Cons – Unfair promotions for some in project management, compensation on the low end of the spectrum, not much room for growth if already at a senior level, little to no mentoring, lots of overworked employees and botched projects.

Advice to Senior Management – Provide a clear organizational hierarchy, make public all job descriptions, develop a career path for each position, especially those already at senior levels. Hire more staff to alleviate burnout.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Digitaria

Pros – well-known in san diego, quality of work produced is some of the best in southern california for interactive work, overall the people are cool and young.

Cons – Average/low compensation, slow to advance you in your role (many get stuck in the same role for years w/ little pay increase).

Advice to Senior Management – Allow your competent employees to shine and lead more. Too much control will slow these individuals down and ultimately push them away.

Former Employee – worked at Digitaria

Pros – You will be surrounded by some of the highest pedigree of talent in all of San Diego, hands down.

The variety of projects and the roster of clients is extremely impressive. Personal growth is supported. You will have a solid portfolio if you stick around for a couple of years.

The office is downtown in the best part of San Diego.Upper management is all-ears when necessary.

Free parking, health benefits, 401k and some seriously AWESOME parties are also all reasons you should consider working for Digitaria.

Cons – There is little collaboration between teams. Project teams are separated by many rooms which makes communication difficult.

The rooms are too crowded and often looks messy (which isn't good if you need to be creative.) The company is growing too quickly with no signs of moving to a bigger facility.

The hardware used is adequate but not top-of-the-line. I feel like a company the size of this should invest in better computers for some of the other departments.

Advice to Senior Management – Too much of the company treats their jobs like a 9-5 chore. I think you will get harder workers if you instill a better bonus system or give your employees a %share of Digitaria.

Provide a bigger work space. The 3rd floor looks great but I can't say the same for the 2nd floor.

Invest more time in your marketing. The company is already a phenomenal success and with a sharper focus in your marketing you will truly become the national agency you've been wanting to become.

Give your designers a little more leeway. They have some great ideas but your budgets are holding them back.

Invest more money/time into multimedia.

Don't force billable revenue toward project management. Their teams are great and highly useful for big engagements; but for the smaller ones, the team leaders are perfectly capable of handling the planning. The % of money you will save on that can be used to yield a higher quality product.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend