Pros
Cool project concepts Fully stocked kitchen Good health insurance Great people (below middle management, at least)
Cons
Abysmal leadership from the tippy-top down to design directors. Management is too afraid to be up front about most things, so direction often becomes convoluted or completely non-existent. The Tim’s are completely out of touch with their employees, who are incredibly talented and smart. The owners have no idea just how much work their employees put in. The Tims’ ONLY priority is $$$ and they can’t see value in anything or anyone else. They constantly and consistently sacrifice quality for speed. A lot of “legacy” employees. There are a lot of employees who have been there so long that they are stuck; this clouds their judgment. People are so stuck in their ways that they are unwilling to adapt to the changing world of design. While very driven by title hierarchy, Downstream really has no concept of what each role actually entails. Each project is doomed to be chaotic due to this. Downstream has absolutely zero concept of process, which also adds to the chaos. Sales-driven; impossible deadlines sold by the out-of-touch sales team without consulting designers and devs.