Disney Interactive Studios Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Disney Interactive Studios full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good people, fun projects, potential for growth.

Cons – Management is all over the place, the actual facilities are extremely lacking

Advice to Senior Management – Inspire and reward hard work more often

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

Current Employee – been working at Disney Interactive Studios full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Get to see how the Disney machine operates. Learn valuable lessons about how NOT to run a business. There is a very, very small group of talented people -- but they're on the way out.

Cons – Quite literally the most toxic, hostile and unhealthy environment I've seen. During annual employee feedback the statistically overwhelming complaint is professional oppression yet it's ignored. Work/life balance is horrible. Complaints of verbal abuse are common but HR is completely disengaged. Lying and backstabbing to get ahead are so common they are expected and engrained in the culture. Being disrespectful and harsh is encouraged as a motivational tool by some senior execs. The pay is comically low. A VP here is equivalent to a senior manager at a tech company. SVP = a Director, etc. Entrenched dinosaurs are everywhere and hold on to dated ideas of "leadership" and control. Incompetence breeds incompetence here and it's everywhere. The ratio of talent to dead weight is rapidly deteriorating. Promotions are politically motivated. It's simply a train wreck of an organization.

Advice to Senior Management – As part of the exec team I see a chance to turn this around but we must rid ourselves of the poisonous influences. It's painfully obvious to all who needs to go. How much of the top talent has to leave before the cancer is removed? Imagine how the group would perform with actual leadership. You can't buy loyalty or respect through promotions and raises. Adhere to the currently hollow values we hang on our walls and stop the hostility and abuse.

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

Former Employee – worked at Disney Interactive Studios full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – The people you work with. This isn't "just" a job, everyone here wants to be here. Great benefits and perks. Salaries are decent. The facilities (depending on your location) are top notch.

Cons – Annual layoffs. Like clockwork, at the end of January there will be layoffs. If you survive it, don't breathe easy - there will be another round of layoffs in March or April.

Advice to Senior Management – Care more about your people. Pick a game plan and stick with it.

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

Former Employee – worked at Disney Interactive Studios full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – - Disney is an incredibly inspiring company to work for
- Disney-related perks and cross-company ties
- Pay and benefits are very reasonable
- Good, solid resume-building opportunities for a major recognized brand
- Vast amount of intellectual property and material to work with
- Strong and professional human resources practices

Cons – - Executive leadership is incredibly unstable, and very weak to non-existent middle management exposes it to all levels. Major political turf wars trickle down the reporting structures and lead to transparently bad decisions. High management turn-over leads to frequent re-orgs, highly reactive strategic shifts, and perpetual wasted effort.
- Constant threat of frequent and far-reaching layoffs implicitly encourages self-serving and defensive behavior between groups. The fear drives people not to succeed, but to ensure there's always a reason another group can be seen as more of a problem. Large parts of the division are effectively paralyzed, engaged in an endless cycle of risk mitigation and defensive planning.
- This is not a technology company. It is an entertainment company that happens to employ people with technical skills. Technology is aggressively managed as a fungible commodity. A need to play within this power structure means technical leadership is often less technically competent the higher you go.
- The company size, bureaucracy, communication overhead, and love of endless discussion with frequent travel makes it very difficult to reach the consensus necessary to make bold decisions or chase emerging technology trends.
- The focus on risk aversion and short-term profits means one must typically look to other divisions to provide the inspiration associated with working for Disney.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop punishing entire teams with widespread layoffs when they take informed risks. Give technology an equal seat at the table with product and finance. Invest heavily in strong middle management to free executive leadership to focus on strategic vision. Stop rewarding defensive finger-pointing, and be less tolerant of endlessly circular discussion. Cut the insistence on personal relationships to get anything done, even if that means gutting the seemingly bottomless travel budget. And take a good hard look at your priorities when you have more product and project people to plan and monitor the work being done than actual people doing the work.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Disney Interactive Studios full-time for more than a year

Pros – Working for a well known brand is a good resume builder

Cons – No room for growth, poorly organized, lack of communication, many layers of management, many inexperienced middle managers, promoting consumerism & unintelligent culture to kids, very poorly organized overall, male dominated culture

Advice to Senior Management – Communicate with employees, raise entry level salaries, provide more substantial raises for top performers, develop a sustainable growth plan rather than re-organizing every 3 months, develop career paths, offer more training for management, cut travel and expense accounts

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Disney Interactive Studios full-time for more than a year

Pros – Challenging fun work environment. Ease of internal communication. Team oriented environment.

Cons – Tendency of lay offs. Decisions of product/company direction.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Disney Interactive Studios full-time

Pros – Has some of the greatest, most talented people around. Has a good work/life balance. Some good perks.

Cons – Bad leadership, lack of direction and vision for the company. Leadership doesn't seem to have a good understanding of the market or a willingness to learn. Tendency to pass down blame and layoff people periodically.

Advice to Senior Management – Trust the people you hire.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Disney Interactive Studios full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great Disney benefits and discounts, animate on Disney characters. The directors are very kind and encouraging. Creating children's games is fun and appealing for animators.

Cons – Some people became "too comfortable" Often heard "well we can't do that" in one form or another pertaining to the character rigs. Often this carried over into programming where you would submit your animations into a black hole waiting to hear back, only to find that they never realized your animations were in.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to keep a staff that is engaged and interested in pushing the product every year.

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

Current Employee – been working at Disney Interactive Studios as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – Personally had no problems with other workers, leads or managers. Environment is casual and relaxed. Lots of overtime if you want it.

Cons – Lots of overtime if you don't want it. Its not all mandatory, but you are encouraged to work as much as you want. Low pay but is some wiggle room for the experienced. Pay, however is fair considering industry standards. Depending on department/need, you might be on call for awhile.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep bringing in the projects to keep us working.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Disney Interactive Studios as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Disney Interactive has a history of hiring and keeping only the best and most positive developers. Therefor the teams I work with have all been great. The people here are a blast to work with, and everyone is dedicated to their job.

Cons – Poor planning and mismanagement. Politics and face saving by management for disastrous decisions have really brought this studio down. The constant shifting and rearranging of the management (and now the dev teams) continues to drag the studio further and further into the hole.

Advice to Senior Management – Do your homework before jumping on an expensive idea. Stop putting your pride and personal opinions in front of the needs of the studio.

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