Pros
Spectacular employees- detail-oriented, smart, hilarious. Benefits were pretty great for a small agency, competitive pay (also snacks, SF office is dog friendly). The workspace is beautiful and well-designed. Olivier is one of the kindest people in leadership that I've met and genuinely cares about the creative integrity of each project Kettle touches. If you're looking to grow your career and try on a lot of different hats, a small agency like Kettle is a good place to do it. I saw Producers be account people, strategists, business affairs, and producers all in one day. That being said, the opportunity to grow into a bigger/more impactful position is slim.
Cons
Kettle SF team is highly unorganized. Everything from the on-boarding process to the day-to-day seemed to have functional issues which wouldn't even be a thought at other places. There is one client for the SF office and they are extremely particular (even though Kettle is not an agency of record for that client). If you're a creative, you'll more likely than not be pushing pixels for work that you cannot add to your portfolio- this is not the office you go to for more conceptual work (that's the NY office). In the job posting where it reads "this is not a 9-5 job", believe it. Producers are often expected to be working from New York start of day (6:30AM PST) often until about 8PM or so. Creatives are on call every night with expectation that if need be, will work the weekends (but Kettle is generous in making it up to them). SF leadership discusses/gossips about employees and clients in French not knowing that enough of them understand the language to register what they are saying. Staffing is an absolute nightmare with an ever-revolving door of freelancers. The general outlook is "let's just throw bodies at it." Kettle SF is not proactive about chasing new business. Young people are put in managerial roles without the mentoring or education on how to be good managers. Therefore, the work suffers as does faith in the presumed manager. It's widely known that contracts are riddled with grammatical errors and missing basic clauses which leaves the team vulnerable to the ever-changing whims of the client and puts the company in a vulnerable legal position. The client has and will continue to take advantage of this. Kettle SF operates without regard as to how the client wants things and is more focused more on pleasing internal leadership. Kettle SF leadership is more concerned about mundane details than selling in the work and going after new business.