City of Seattle Reviews

Pros

All departments and levels of the organization are very overt in messaging and valuing diversity, equity and inclusion; and central HR is actively moving meaningful initiatives forward to ensure that this vision becomes more practical. IT specifically takes its core functions seriously - there are centers of excellence for business analysis, program management and others, and reorgs seem to be centered on becoming more reflective of best practice. Work life balance is great here, and protected classes / minorities / women will find this a welcoming workplace that strives to be comfortable and safe. They offer a pension that couples with the State's system, and the optional deferred compensation system offers a government 457, which has unique tax benefits, as well as great index funds with very low fees.

Cons

Siloing isn't a bug, but a feature here, and a lot of departmental senior leadership are infernally good at mouthing the forward-thinking and socially conscious catch phrases, while also finding ways to spend most of their energy to maintain the status quo and/or kingdom build. It's easy to enter, but very difficult to move up, which is entirely and nakedly political in a way that no one seems particularly concerned about concealing. This creates an obvious and unresolved conflict between the values of equity the City espouses, and the way business is done, which is horse trading. Having said that, if you are an educated and ambitious person of color, a woman, or out and proud, this is the place to be. I have watched a dozen promotions of all kinds around me, and every one of them went to a woman and/or person of color. That's not a con - I'm balancing out the con I mentioned above with its bright side, that the politics here still seem to try as much as possible to right historical wrongs by elevating those who have been oppressed.

Pros

Good benefits, competitive pay, hard to get fired

Cons

Bureaucratic nightmare. Atmosphere of distrust.

Pros

Benefits are great. Pension, savings plan, very low cost health insurance, union membership, plenty of vacation. They really are top notch bennies.

Cons

This only really applies to the IT department, but it is an absolute mess. Constant reorganization, hiring and firing, and ill-conceived attempts to turn the City’s IT department into a “tech company.” Executives are shuffled around regularly when they’re inevitably unsuccessful in fixing the rot that plagues this department. The other City departments that rely on IT absolutely despise dealing with us because it’s such a mess. I feel bad for them. The organization is siloed to an extreme degree. Everyone knows the department is in bad shape, but they hold on for the benefits and because they’re vested in the pension plan. There are plenty of good and smart people working here, but they aren’t empowered to change anything. The impacts of COVID on the budget are going to make the problems even worse.