Mostly Good - Anonymous employee Sandstorm Design Employee Review

I absolutely loved my time at Sandstorm! Starting at the top with Sandy, the friendliness, support, and collaborative spirit of the people there were top-notch. The impressive design team did a LOT with a typically minimal budget coming up with wonderful layouts and strong brand voices. The engineering team was smart and nimble.

To compete with larger agencies with bigger footprints in the industry, new business was typically won through competitively reduced budgets and aggressive timelines. These smaller budgets would lead to hamstrung project scopes, timelines, and limited employee compensation.

In my time at Sandstorm, I learned so much from the projects, team members and leadership. Sandstorm has a very genuine dedication to inclusivity and good, solid work. There are many long-tenured employees who are extremely welcoming and kind. For a small agency, it's extremely organized and processes are well-established and smooth. A great place to learn the ins-and-outs of agency work and really get your hands dirty on large scale projects without office bureaucracy/hierarchy getting in the way. The focus is truly on the work. Sandy is a great leader and a great human. The passion radiates from her. Great work-life balance. I may have worked late like once? Overall, 10/10 would recommend to a friend. Unfortunately our paths crossed at a time that didn't push me the way I wanted in my career but I could very easily see myself as a boomerang in the future.

Smaller budgets can feel constraining, especially when it means tight hours (not necessarily tight turnarounds but limited time allotted to work on projects) so sometimes it means diligently tracking hours which can be creatively limiting