Rooster Teeth Productions Reviews

Pros

* The culture is amazing. This is a more community-motivated company than I've ever worked for before. * The business takes great care of its engineers. * There's good opportunity to take ownership over large software platforms, without the feeling of a lot of pressure all at once. * The Engineering team works very (VERY) closely with the Product team. You are part of the same team and truly try to share a vision. There's no "work on your ticket and don't ask any questions" here.

Cons

* Some things can be a little disorganized, although the team over the last few years has taken great measures to improve processes, tools, and documentation.

Pros

Benefits are getting worse but are still decent. Pay is almost competitive, and getting better. Easy for talented and savvy people to coast here.

Cons

Rooster Teeth is not perfect, and you should embrace that it is a bit competitive and minor league. Sometimes it still feels a bit like working with high schoolers. That said, it was much worse a few years ago. Criticisms from past years apply less today as many of the most problematic people have been fired or pushed out.

Pros

Most of the people I got to work with that are _not_ upper management are wonderful, hard working, creative people that will show their care for you not just verbally, but by helping you, actually doing their job, and not floundering on important decisions. Most of the current department leads and below were the greatest part about RT. Everyone was there for each other and actually had empathy for what we were all going through.

Cons

Upper management feels like they've never understood how to properly care about a human being and only wanted to cover themselves for any slip up they had. Yeah, the pay has gotten better, but only for select departments and positions that they clearly wanted to preserve especially with the recent hiring freeze. From my experience, and knowledge of those around me, it seemed like they started throwing money at people who were getting tired of it all and were on their way out. With no other way to keep folks aside from a raise and a promise that things will get better, they kept some people; including me. The promise that things will get better has always been "the Rooster Teeth way", at least from what I've witnessed in my 4+ years at the company. This, as well as failing upwards by filling most open positions with people who want the opportunity, but then are not properly trained or given the resources needed to be set up for success. Not just for themselves, but for the health of the company and the production pipeline. There's this carrot on a stick that they dangle in front of you to make you believe there's hope and then they follow up by not doing anything or offer you the minimum and make you suffer for longer until you're either laid off or you finally understand that it's not worth it and _you're_ worth more. I've seen so many people dwindle down after so much hard work while they wait for these upper management folk who just need to say 'yes' or 'no' sit on that answer until it gets to a stress point and it either causes issues for the pipeline by missing windows of opportunity, putting a strain on production to have things done in a shorter amount of time, or just crushes people's will to wait any longer in this perpetual limbo. There is definitely more to say, but this is just a few of the many reasons this company has not improved or grown. It's far too disorganized and the burn out from being over-worked in almost every department is apparent. For the Community: I want to say that this review is just for folks who are considering working here. I do not support damning the company as a whole and simply just warning those who want to choose this path. Maybe you can try to be a part of the change or maybe this can help you pick a better option.

Pros

Some of my favorite people work/have worked here. These are network connections and friendships I truly hope will last a lifetime. There used to be many work culture benefits, but those have eroded as time has gone on. The fan base is dedicated, passionate, and oftentimes one of the biggest motivators.

Cons

It is easy to speak at length about the problems this company faces currently (and at least one recent review already has). In brief, I will just say that there have been many, many good people who have had their ambitions, energy, and even dreams squashed by working here long for long enough. For some, many of the things they wish to achieve for themselves exist here, but only for an impossible-to-penetrate inner circle people. I have seen several people grow weary and disheartened by their best efforts to reach these places fail.

Pros

Easy work, about half the people you meet there are competent professionals.

Cons

Two-tier system for talent vs office professionals - talent does very little and gets a lot of credit. Low salaries, based on salaries in the late 2000's.

Pros

The people, not management or above, are usually great and very talented. It's a shame they work at Rooster Teeth. They used to pay for lunch once a week and kept doing that during the start of COVID but the higher ups shut that down immediately to "save a buck"

Cons

Racist, homophobic, transphobic attitudes permeate everything they do. They claim to "be better" but behind closed doors the executives, managers, and on screen talent are happily promoting various forms of hate speech in secret. One of the "Founding Fathers" was removed from the company for threatening to bring a gun to work. Another "Left The Company" after mismanaging millions of dollars and causing the company to go into severe debt. Crunch culture exists in every department for anyone below management level. They have outwardly claimed that animation has "no more crunch" years ago, but it's just as bad as it ever was and crunch in other departments have never been addressed. All all of their animation staff were moved off of "Full Time" and moved to "contract", meaning any Over Time must be approved by a manager. Rooster Teeth does not have the money to pay that Over Time and animation staff are often told to do Over Time work and not report it. Nepotism is the only way to get promoted here and you need to be friends with talent or management to get any kind of promotion. If you aren't you will not get a raise and will not be properly promoted. They have been on a "hiring and promotion freeze" for years (before and during COVID), but despite that have hired and promoted friends and given huge raises and bonuses to them, even more recently after saying "ABSOLUTELY NO MORE PROMOTIONS" people have been promoted to high positions despite having no skills to do those jobs. Pay is ridiculously below industry standard, there is no COVID sick leave, and anyone on any kind of "contract work" is treated less than human. Their "actual employees" are not treated much better. They promise "Take What You Need" days off but never actually approve your time off. Departments are discouraged from talking with each other, collaboration is discouraged, and open communication is locked down by management. Instead of collaborating departments are usually told to actively compete with other departments because if they do not "outperform" the others their department will be cut down or cut entirely. Head leadership has, on many occasions, told the entire employee group to essentially shut up and work harder by weaponizing the Company's Core Values like "Check Yourself!" after some new ideas were said to be potentially extremely harmful to the company itself, its employees, and the community. Some high level staff are so afraid of losing their jobs they have actively stolen work from the rest of their team under the idea of "wearing multiple hats" and proceeded to leave those team members with no work, making those team members eventually leave the company, further reducing the amount of actual staff who knows how to do jobs. Management essentially demands transparency from all employees meanwhile they claim to also be extremely transparent - despite this they keep secrets from employees that end up causing huge work roadblocks and production stoppages. Rooster Teeth is a company that is full of skeletons and awful secrets that will hurt your career and your creative drive. Rooster Teeth is also moving away from making content that is geared toward existing audiences/new audiences and what the employees want to work on and is more focused on making things to "Make A Quick Buck" which has made them actively lose money and unable to pay employees. DO NOT PITCH ANY IDEAS TO ROOSTER TEETH EVER! THEY WILL STEAL YOUR IDEAS AND THEN ASK TO BE COMPENSATED FOR THEM IF YOU ATTEMPT TO RECLAIM YOUR IDEAS!

Pros

Good place to develop skills, grow and develop professionally.

Cons

Most unwelcoming and difficult working environment I've ever encountered.

Pros

- Generally good people - Flexible with work hours - Able to advance my career/upward mobility - Enjoyable most of the time

Cons

At times, crunch work could be bad though it seems the company has made attempts to eliminate it. Less and less independence creatively due to Warner acquisition. Also, practical things like accessing W2s and requesting time off were often mired in technical problems with Warner media's Workday site. Situations often occurred when an employee would ask HR questions on how to resolve access problems and be directed to Warner Media's tech helpline, only to be directed back to Rooster Teeth HR, creating a never-ending loop that left employees wasting time trying to figure it out. If we're forced to use a system, it should work. People should not have to spend an hour or more on the phone, during a work day, to access their W2 or schedule time off.

Pros

Perfect opportunity to learn the entertainment business without the relentless pressure of working for a traditional studio. Managers care. Culture constantly trying to improve. Not perfect but no company is.

Cons

Divisions of the company can appear siloed from time to time but the pandemic certainly didn't make it easier to resolve.

Pros

Passionate people working on the ground floor that care about their projects and one another.

Cons

Management fails to listen to employees and ignores problems that are repeatedly brought to their attention. They tend to stick to the "we'll find a way to make it work" ideology without offering any practical solutions. Rampant nepotism. Terrible interdepartmental communication. The company claims to be transparent with their audience, but they misdirect and obfuscate the truth regularly. They will always fight you when it comes to your pay, which is always well below industry standard. I witnessed multiple people take on additional responsibilities worthy of a promotion and pay raise that were refused additional compensation under the argument that their increased work output was "really more of a lateral change".