Pros
A very close knit family. Lots of industrious and passionate professionals that work here.
Cons
Let me start by a brief explanation of the development team and then work my way to more of the general feel of the agency. The developers are an amazing group of individuals to work with. They are all very talented, patient, and extremely flexible people that strive to deliver the best possible work even though a majority of the work involves ridiculously tight deadlines. The development team is held with extremely high regard within the agency. However, the talents of the development team is only limited to the developers and does not extend to team leadership and management of the department. I question the capabilities of the team leads as they’ve demonstrated an inability to make decisions that conform to the industry’s best practices. There’s a lot of fluff and big talk by the leads about how the company is making huge strides in disrupting the market and that their paving the way for the future. Take those claims with a grain of salt as some of them are about as inflated as some of the job titles that you may find at Aisle Rocket Studios. While we are on the topic of inflation, here is an example of some of the inflated practices of the office. ARS will claim that they are an agile shop even though none of the projects exercised the agile development life-cycle during my tenure at Aisle Rocket Studios. They will claim they are a data-driven agency. There is no data. These are the more blatant lies you encounter prior to getting hired or during your early employment at Aisle Rocket Studios; others are more subtle. They will claim that the shop works with cutting edge technologies when this is only the case for a small handful of projects. Some of them will never see the light of day, some of them will get shut down. This happens more often than not. Most of their architectural decisions are extremely archaic so bad practices and bugs will be rampant. If you plan on working here, be emotionally prepared to be frustrated with day to day tasks. Management is extremely cheap in setting up a project correctly so the development life-cycle tends to move at glacial pace. Be prepared to work countless long nights and be expected to have chaotic product launches. Expect team leads to defend their honor by telling you stories of how they've overcome situations similar to this back in their heyday. When you persevere, which you will, you may bask in the glory of an ephemeral "Thank You" note. Don't expect a raise. Now, let's move onto the general cons of the agency. There's a pecking order between teams. To get far, you need to know who you have to cater to. Cliques are rampant, drama is rampant, and nepotism is rampant. You have to know the right people to get recognition, and working for the wrong ones might have your own career development suppressed. Be on the wrong team, or have the wrong boss and your work might be glossed over and your superiors might take ownership of your ideas and claim it as their own. Leadership has little regard for their employees. They will commit to outrageously unrealistic timelines so employee disgruntlement will be rampant. Benefits and competitive pay are about as much of a joke as leadership is capable. They will meet behind closed doors and claim that they want to hear our stories, our concerns, and our pain points. They will encourage us to be ‘change agents’ in the office but there is never any change, just massive layoffs.
