Unprofessional management drags down a promising concept - Anonymous employee Periscopic Employee Review

2.0
Sep 22, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Do Good with Data must be the best tagline of all time. The idea that data visualization can be crafted as a social good rather than a corporate metric is way overdue. More companies need to do this. Employees are smart, creative, cooperative, and nice.

Cons

Management is dysfunctional and disorganized. Employees are given conflicting directions and goals are changed without warning. The 'Do Good With Data' is just the shiny veneer - employees are as likely to be grinding away at some corporate visualization drudgery as they are to be saving the polar bears. My personal experience as a designer was one of constant frustration. I was kept completely siloed from the customer, consistently told that the customer liked my work, then told that it wasn't good enough or just plain wrong. My supervisor alternated between telling me to design my way and telling me to design according to the process of the employee i was replacing. My task was to design a user interface for a visualization the DataVis team hadn't even started on yet, and when i suggested it would be easier to make a good design if i knew what i was designing for, i was treated as if i was intentionally being uncooperative. Ultimately, i was fired without warning (my boss didn't even do it themselves, but instead had the other partner handle it), though the final design of the product is based entirely on my 'unsatisfactory' work. I know that the company went through at least two more designers in the 18 months after i left, which suggests some sort of systemic problem in the UI department.

Explore other reviews about Periscopic

5.0
Jan 23, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- great environment - talented, thoughtful leadership - client service work with a mission - teams are generally dedicated to one or two projects at a time - rare opportunity to work on data visualization problems full-time

Cons

- selectivity around clients and projects means work can be slow at times

5.0
Aug 12, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people here care tremendously about their work, no matter their role and are genuinely trying to make the world a better place. Pay and raises have been fair - perhaps not quite as high as in companies whose focus is more heavily on profits - but still quite reasonable. For me it's well worth it, since the owners have many times turned away business from well heeled companies that didn't align with our 'do good with data' motto. Also, I think it's important to point out that the company's wise fiscal management allowed us to avoid any layoffs or paycuts during the last downturn.

Cons

It's a small company that is growing and as such roles are a bit nebulous. If you're someone who is self-motivated and enjoys learning new skills that's great; but it's not for everyone. On a related note, there is definite upward career potential, but it is certainly not well laid out as in a larger, more hierarchical company.

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