Electronic Arts Reviews

Pros

Great flexibility and a lot of on site perks like free gym and good child care and great lunch cafeteria. Work time was flexible.

Cons

Only Manager and upward got perks like telecommuting and offsite visits to other locations. everone below that was a bit canceled out.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should sometimes be more conscious about all the people that make the place work, especially the once that make all the details for the games.

Pros

very knowledgable collegues, incredible facilities, very fair in regards to personal time and overtime compensation, great benefits and corporate swag.

Cons

more than average overtime required (it is well paid though), IT service is very slow unless you know the right people to go to.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize efforts and good work in order to promote employees to further their careers within the company which will create more team spirit.

Pros

Fun and rewarding work environment with great people!

Cons

Too many contract positions and an uncertainty of being hired full time (even as an outstanding employee).

Pros

Opportunity to work on varied projects and properties and gain a great deal of valuable experience.
Work with passionate people.

Cons

Risk adversion to doing anything new, innovative and original.
Lack of vision and courage and trust at an executive level.

Advice to Senior Management

Doing a great job supporting big titles.............doing a terrible job allowing teams to find the next innovative cool thing.

Pros

Compensation is good, benefits are great. You get some free games, if you are interested.
Company has huge "Not Invented Here" syndrome. If you that kind of person who wants to have CV filled with lines like "Optimized custom implementation of std::vector" and "Created custom database engine" you will fit just perfectly.

Cons

Company has a policy against internal mobility. That means if company has a vacancy for a Senior SE and you are fit for it, you can not apply for a position, unless you quit the company first. I did not believe it at first, talked to multiple managers and HR to get as many confirmations as possible. That's true: the only way to get to a higher position in EA is to sit tight and wait for your manager to promote you (when someone higher up quits).
And yet again, the huge "Not Invented Here" syndrome. Experience you get in EA has virtually no value for the outer world. So you can build project with the internal EA tool, you can debug EA's internal memcached copycat, you know everything about three different internal frameworks - good for you, but you will never find another company to use them.
Management constantly swings between trends. I've been involved in a project which switched project planning tool 4 times in just 8 months. It also changed application framework halfway through, btw.
Another widely known fact is the overtimes. Management is fine with 4 hours of "beer Friday", but it will ask you to come up on "Saturday" for the 4 hours of work. And you don't have an option to work full day on Friday and skip the overtime.
EA uses ancient software. Most of the developers still use Windows OS! Most of the internal sites only work in Internet Explorer! And so on, from the build tools to project planning software.

Advice to Senior Management

Read your own presentations. Be Bold. Think Consumers First. Innovate. And so on. The company is still able to attract talented people, but fails to use their talents properly. I've seen too many good developers quitting and bad developers promoted to replace them. That's a problem for management to solve.

Pros

Smart and creative people; forward thinking management

Cons

Difficult to stand out in the crowd; limited promotion opportunities

Advice to Senior Management

More interaction with employees to cultivate ownership mentality and comraderie

Pros

Building best games with brightest creative people, interesting engineering problems,

Cons

Long hours, recent cuts not related to personal performance

Pros

- nice team
- salary not bad with the potential bonus
- nice facility
- managers are helpful and protect developers from politics

Cons

- basic salary is just market average
- too many teams and sometimes hard to find the right person

Advice to Senior Management

- pay more for salary
- make a better orientation not just for company as a whole but for specific team

Pros

Since i am from the animation background, i m interested towards the game design and i am looking forward to have a change in the dept.

Cons

Being on the contract basis, where the salary paid is less.

Pros

Large organisation with lots of opportunities
Projects are generally reasonably resourced
Most of the upper managerment are enthusiastic about the product

Cons

Projects and studios closed at the drop of a hat, as new management come in (every 12 months), and think that they have some amazing new insight into how to run the company, only to head off to obliterate some other company when they (inevitably) fail.

Advice to Senior Management

For anyone studio head or down, stick to your guns, fight for your team, and try not to succumb to the whim of the day from above. You know games development, you have your skills, and let your studio live or die by your success, not from some overriding imperative (if possible).