Various Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Various full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – 401k Matching, and otherwise good benefit package.

Cons – Industry is not the most glamorous, but if you don't mind working with that type of content then it's a good place to work at.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – Really nice cfenging/git setup for change management, nice building, some good people (well, assuming the remaining ones haven't quit yet, which may be a stretch).

Cons – Too many good people have left too quickly. No coherence, a nice system, but no plan or theory about how to use it (for any given thing, you could do it via cfengine or editing the file in git, with no rhyme or reason as to why it was done one way vs another), and forking a single code base into 9 separate code bases, while reducing sysadmin headcount (but it would need to increase). Benefits have been really cut back as of 2012, people quit over that alone.

Advice to Senior Management – It would seem that old media people don't know how to run a new media company.

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

Current Employee – been working at Various

Pros – good place to learn and nice people

Cons – bad process and bad management

Current Employee – been working at Various

Pros – We push a lot of traffic. From an Operations' perspective it is a large, interesting and exciting environment with lots of room for improvement still. There are many technical challenges to work through that are engaging. Many of the people I work with are technically very bright, personally very friendly and are fun to work with. Experimentation is encouraged and can prompt change. There is a strong culture to promote from within when appropriate and seek fresh blood when needed. The Health and 401(k) options are both decently provisioned, with low co-pays on health care and up to 4% matching on 401(k) contributions.

Cons – Management, especially Senior Management, often to seem to be at odds with the staff leading to low morale. Low morale leads to high turnover. I've had to talk others out of leaving and others have had to talk me out of it too. It often feels that management does not trust its employees. The management culture tends to prefer "fast, cheap" while the grunts usually prefer "cheap, good". Communication from management is spotty and oft changing, sometimes wildly. Resource constraints aligned with unrealistic management demands leads to rampant hack-assery, with documentation often an after thought if it was a thought at all, "wrong" decisions made in the interest of speed and things generally getting 80% finished, "good enough to work" but never with any "polish". There are only 9 holidays a year and PTO is too low, with sick days sharing the PTO pool. Telecommuting on a regular basis is verboten. Stress is often high due to too few hands leading to multiple concurrent demands on many of the Operations staff, leading to insufficient focused time for major projects. The work schedule often does not include adequate time for evaluation of options, proper implementation of solutions or documentation.

Advice to Senior Management – Come up with a Vision and then ask us for a plan to meet that vision. Don't try to dictate technical solutions, let the techies work the technology and management work the business. When you're still not sure what's going on keep your mouth shut. When you have some certainly openly and quickly communicate what the deal is. Encourage cross group collaboration. LISTEN TO YOUR EMPLOYEES AND TAKE ACTION BASED ON THEIR FEEDBACK.

Former Employee – worked at Various

Pros – All the various sound post production studios are different, but generally the staff are all very friendly and willing to help.

Cons – Being freelance one never becomes a complete part of the various studios, so it is sometimes possible to feel somewhat isolated.

Advice to Senior Management – Look after your permanent staff better.

Former Employee – worked at Various

Pros – free lunch. nice people. flexible working hour.

Cons – no bonus. no stocks. no raise.

Current Employee – been working at Various

Pros – it depends on your capability

Cons – no search for talents, or mantainance of the few they have, no organization, no respect, no professionalism, no vision, among othres downsides.

Advice to Senior Management – The company is big, has a lot of branches, and does not have a culture spread to all of them, so it will depends on have a great leader wilth a lot of power and courage to make the improvements needed, so maybe some companies of the group are good or better to work than others, depending in which country , city you are, or the friends you have inside, or a perssonal nice good boss. Its a pitty, they have a huge thing on theirs hands.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Various

Pros – Working as a freelance designer can be very rewarding from a creative point of view, the work is very varied
You will have the opportunity get to work with a wide range of clients from different areas, gaining valuable experience

Cons – The need to factor in holidays, tax and pension into your proposals/fees
As self-employed, it's easy to slip into a habit of working long hours

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Various

Pros – scheduling flexibility, the right to say no, no work to take home, no ultimate responsibility, lots of days off

Cons – very intermittent employment, often students are disrespectful, sometimes even dangerous, can get demoralizing if you have a string of bad classrooms

Advice to Senior Management – Give substitute teachers concise, readable and detailed documents outlining expectations, such as no cellphones in the classroom, what to do if a student is disruptive.