BULKHEAD reviews

3.8

75% would recommend to a friend

(84 total reviews)

Joe Brammer

74% approve of CEO

65% positive business outlook

BULKHEAD has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 84 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The BULKHEAD employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

84 reviews
1.0
Jan 27, 2025

Great projects, Poor management

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Genuinely fun and creative projects - Lots of passionate developers - High quality equipment provided

Cons

- Toxic work atmosphere, with management openly bad-mouthing employees and other studios on a regular basis. It’s disappointing to see management leaving childish comments about other companies in Glassdoor reviews. - A lack of outside experience among staff, as many employees have only ever worked at Bulkhead. Those who bring in external knowledge either leave or are forced out. - Clear signs of nepotism and favouritism within management. - The four-day work week isn't great, with some staff putting in far more hours than they would on a regular five-day working week, and other disciplines not pulling their weight - not every employee was entitled to this benefit. - Socials are filled with extremely unprofessional "lad-like" activities and humiliation. - Bonuses and pay rises are very rare, with some staff earning well below industry standards. - There’s a lot of talk about “responsibility” and “ownership”, but this is often just a way for management to shift the blame for their own poor decisions and lack of useful feedback onto the developers. - A lot of senior level staff do not have the experience for the role - made clear by my last point where middle management do not own decisions out of fear from upper management. - Poor amount of holidays - absolute minimum given, with the company requiring you to use almost a quarter of this on Christmas shutdown.

1.0
Jun 13, 2023

The highers ups are clueless

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- You get to work on some exciting projects. - Many people (not all however, we will get to that later) work 4 days a week. - Lots of friendly, clever people. - Some of the socials were fun. - They allowed (some) people to work from home.

Cons

- Nepotism and favouritism. My personality didn't gel with the highers ups and as a result I was ignored for socials, promotions, benefits etc. Only way to get higher up in the company is to be best friends with Joe. I know someone who worked at the company for many years and when they handed their notice in, didn't even get to say bye to people. - I was bullied at work by higher ups multiple times, as were many other people. It got to the point I had to go to my GP about it because of it being so hurtful. Almost all of the socials consist of making people do dares and drink. If your lead tells you to eat a raw egg, it isn't easy to say no. The leadership is toxic, just like multiple reviews on this page signify. - There was some kind of drama almost every week, we had to have meetings very frequently to discuss the fact people weren't happy. If you have meetings about a certain individual multiple times, there's probably an issue there with that person, not the 10+ people that complained. - There were changes to our working environment almost every month, for example changing remote work or the amount of days we worked. I never felt safe like I would still have my job in a month as a result. - One rule for one, one rule for another. People working in the office only had to work 4 days a week, whilst people remote had to do 5 days a week. Most likely reason being Joe doesn't trust his staff unless he's best friends with them, in which case they get all the benefits and none of the negatives! - Brammer singled out someone who left the company by name and told 50+ people in a zoom meeting that "his work was bad anyways". How can you respect someone who does this? - Bulkhead have been removing some of these reviews and faking positive reviews. - Joe Brammer's posts on Twitter only hurt the reputation of the company. - Tasks were never clear, many times I was given a task someone had already done or the design had changed since. I was lucky to even get a Jira task. - I was given tasks to do by the morning that was given to me 20 minutes before I finished for the day. - Most benefits on their website are complete lies and don't exist.

1.0
Mar 29, 2025

AVOID - IGNORE FAKE REVIEWS

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There isnt many. Breakfast used to be nice. Fizzy drinks where a plus too. Great place if you want to hate going to work everyday.

Cons

The root of the problem is the CEO and upper management, Joe (CEO) is egotist and doesnt even try to hide his poor traits, he knows he can get away with anything and doesnt care about his workforce. This company needs some form of investigation for misconduct, doing mass layoffs and then hiring 3 months later for the same positions... like come on now. The company knows they're doing a poor job and instead of fix the issue by listening to their employees, they'd rather take a childish approach of ignoring feedback thry seek and getting rid of those who give it, why ask for feedback if youre then going to hold it against them and put them on your hitlist. 4 day work week doesn't work, you just end up working more than people on a 5 day work week when it's crunch and other overtime which gets forced on you - you don't get hours banked nor paid for working extra hours. They even have a fingerprint scanner in the door to clock in and clock out, it's an office not a factory. No work at home policy, not even if it's one day when you're expecting a parcel or looking after a family pet. No flexibility whatsoever.

avatar
BULKHEAD Response
1y
I appreciate you taking the time to write this — even if I think parts of it are unfair and a bit off the mark. I’ll be honest, the personal shots — calling me egotistical and saying I don’t care — are tough to read. Not because they hurt my feelings (okay, maybe a bit), but because I really do care. I know I’m not always the easiest person to work for. I move fast, I’ve got strong opinions, and I don’t always get it right. But if you left feeling like no one cared — that’s a failure on my part, and I’m genuinely sorry for that. I do want to talk about the “fake reviews” comment though. We did ask the team to leave honest reviews on Glassdoor (March 28th 2025) — not glowing ones, just real ones. We told people: be honest, include the negatives, don’t sugarcoat it. Because BULKHEAD isn’t for everyone, and people should know that before they join. So when you say those reviews are fake, it’s not just a dig at leadership — it’s a dig at your former teammates who were brave enough to speak honestly. That’s not fair. And look — I’m pretty sure Glassdoor is good at spotting fake reviews. If they weren’t, the whole site wouldn’t work. We’re in that weird stage of growing from a small team to a bigger one — and we don’t want to lose what made us different just to become another studio with beanbags and buzzwords. That comes with a cost. We try things. We fail at some. The people who work here are the ones who carry us through that trial and error, and they’re the real heroes of this place. We’ve still got a lot to figure out — flexibility, balance, communication — and I’ve made my fair share of mistakes. But the intention has always been to build something the whole team can be proud of. If you didn’t feel heard while you were here, I take that seriously. But throwing rocks on the way out doesn’t help anyone. I hope your next role gives you what you were missing here — and genuinely, no hard feelings. — Joe
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Glassdoor has 92 BULKHEAD reviews submitted anonymously by BULKHEAD employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if BULKHEAD is right for you.