frog design Reviews

Cons

Local creative leadership lacks to demonstrate a positive vision and it creates confidence in our studio to find talent.

Cons

It's hard to refine your craft and get better at your specific skillset, due to the incredible variability of each project.

Cons

- very political
- lack of mentorship or decent management skills

Cons

CEO and other execs have no strategic vision and the company is struggling financially
Company claims to have principles, but in reality is willing to compromise on any of them if it means a little more revenue
Cost cutting measures are continuously eroding the working environment and leading the best people to leave

Cons

– Poor leadership, in particular, C-level and VPs are spineless, not transparent, and incompetent and continue to promote and reward similar people. I believe poor leadership is they key reason so many talented frogs have left and why so many talented frogs want to leave.
– Speaking from direct experience, Marketing leadership is sorely incompetent, with no understanding of the design industry or frog's culture. They choose to elevate and keep close key members who are similarly incompetent, mean-spirited, and will do "dirty work" and "say yes" with no questions or regard to integrity, quality, or consistency with frog's values (I could write a whole separate review about this; there's so much to say about the toxicity here)
– Internal communications and HR leadership is laughable, very little transparency or thought put into delivering or carrying out sensitive or important company-wide news or strategies including recent layoffs. It seriously makes me wonder how people who are supposedly trained in internal communications still have their jobs after so many misses. As a result, they've engendered deep distrust between frogs and leadership.
– The handling of layoffs in the past few years has been abysmal and a reflection of the character and integrity of the leadership team
– No investment in tools and resources for day-to-day, learning and development including on-boarding
– Basically NO global strategy around diversity and inclusion, putting most of the burden on individuals and then taking credit for their ideas later. It's too little, too late. I truly believe that how you've handled and executed frogs' concerns around diversity and inclusion will eventually reflect on your character. In my mind, you are on the wrong side of history.
– Upward mobility for global support teams in particular Marketing is a joke
– So much focus on $$$ at the expense of the wellbeing of employees. It IS possible to do both.

Cons

The company has been on a death spiral since 2013. Layoffs happen on an annual basis. They laid off another 20-30 folks last week. In recent years, the company has shut down offices in Seattle, Amsterdam, Sydney and downsized other locations i.e. San Francisco. If you're a brilliant and aspiring designer, you're probably better off going to the client side or one of the larger design consultancies, i.e. Fjord. Or better yet, join that hot start-up and avoid the soul sucking politics of frog.

Cons

Strong financial incentives that didn't translate or benefit design staff. Uneven talent throughout. High turnover rates due to external market encroachment.

Cons

client work is very corporate, frog slowly becoming just another consulting firm

Cons

Not very competitive pay, not a lot of benefits beyond the basics (in comparison to big Bay Area companies), not much investment as a company into internal systems, training, etc

Cons

The problems are internal not external:
- Painful management/anti-management
- Surface level feedback only; if you get feedback
- Do as i say, not as i do attitude.
- There are some good folks remaining
- It's business first, code-of-conduct later
- To survive, you need to manage-up
- Large turnover, becoming a regular thing