Scientific Games Reviews

Pros

Interesting Industry. The warehouse is fun to walk through and take guests on tours.
Good people work there. Good benefits, technology is up to date and the lunch hour is near good places to eat. Some of the people have worked there for a long time.

Cons

Long drive unless you live in the area. The chemical smell from the plant is pretty hard to get used to and you think about if that is good to breath in all day. The security is pretty severe, most doors have badge access, so if you forget your badge, it's a nice wait in security to get cleared.

Advice to Senior Management

Bring back the old fashioned parties and let people drink.

Pros

Good pay
A few departments have solid leadership
Small company, good if thats your thing

Cons

Poor communication between anyone outside of your team, fair amount of duplicate work.
Poor PTO available to anyone under 5 years of service
Lack of focus, goals are short term and often forgotten
Many departments feel a lack of respect and no appreciaton for their work
Outdated work mentality and culture

Advice to Senior Management

Pick a solid goal and focus on it, dont get side tracked with things that arent relevant to the discussion. Loosen up on the 8-5 in your seat mentality.

Pros

Small teams. Team members treated well. Cool hardware technology at times. Goal of quality, even if goal isn't always met. Developers treated as authority.

Cons

Warned when I started that they ran a rotating door of employees. I was cut after 3rd layoff in 2 years. Win a state lottery - hire. Lose a state lottery - fire. Shop is packed with politics and in-house backstabbing. Experience soured one coworker so dramatically that he moved out of the country to escape "evil" companies.

Advice to Senior Management

Shoot straight with people and hire contractors. Calm the infighting and politics. Value should represent ability and not who likes you.

Pros

Good pay for the area I was in. Many OT hours.

Cons

Benefits are not that good

Advice to Senior Management

More communication

Pros

With over 4,900 employees, and loads of world-wide contracts, there is a lot of opportunity to move around and grow.

Cons

Current regime has lost touch with what made the company a well-respected leader. Being publically traded, the almighty dollar takes the front seat to anything else - period. Having their employees indicted or caught up in lottery scandals doesn't speak well for the current management style. The old regime never had any scandals, but they weren't publically traded either. Management is hard-edged.
Aquistions and mergers, along with more contracts spreads employees thin.
Employees are expected to do what is needed for the company first, regardless of personal consequences or hardships on family.
This is an example of a company that grew by leaps and bounds at the sacrifice of employees.
There is no return from the slippery slope of pleasing the shareholders.

Advice to Senior Management

Get more personal with your customers and your employees. Don't manage via fear tactics.
Become an advocate, not an enemy.

Pros

Good work / life balance

Cons

Poor communication among EEs. Every changing atmosphere.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a plan and execute it! Communicate better overall instead of just when an upper level employee is introduced or someone in upper management resigns.

Pros

Vacation time and paid holidays are numerous
Variable scheduling
Management is tolerant of a personal life
Good job if you are interested in learning

Cons

The pay is very low for the job
24/7 datacenter means a rotating shift
very few chances to advance in the company

Advice to Senior Management

Take charge of the employees, sometimes an employee just needs a kick in the butt to get the job done. There is a difference between being a leader and being a boss.

Pros

it was an okay job nothing too spectacular but had a lot of good benefits that came along with the job.

Cons

It was a headache dealing with the staff and management a few times. They just didnt get the idea of what we where supposed to accomplish.

Advice to Senior Management

get a life. and stop pusing your ideals on other people that make no sense. This is 2009 for peets sake.

Pros

Nice management in Alpharetta. Great compensation. Lots going on. Has operations in pretty much every type of gaming. I loved the people.

Cons

The management in NY is risk-averse, and this stifles innovation. The company is maintaining too many systems due to acquisitions and long-term contracts, so this provides a second strike in terms of new types of content.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be afraid to take more risks. All of your product lines are in declining industries, and you need fresh models to stay viable. If you are in the New York office, you should spend much more time in Alpharetta.

Pros

compensation, ability to work with new technology - SG is very open to the use of developing technology. Although training is seldom part of the equation - it's normally "trial by fire".

Cons

benefits, lack of career path, very little internal promotion. Health insurance is not much better than zero health insurance - and just about as expensive. There are no defined career paths - and internal promotion is more a function of who, not what, you know. It's a constant struggle to make sure you are recognized and compensated fairly for what you do.

Advice to Senior Management

realize that employees are not just a commodity - better benefits, better internal communication. Stock price is not the only measure of our success.