WillowTree reviews about "everyone"

Like most of the other comments the acquisition really changed things. I even asked in my interview how they were planning on handling the upcoming recession we could all see coming a mile away. They boasted about how they didn't let anyone go in the pandemic and how the CEO didn't take a salary for a year....so when things weren't looking great financially after the acquisition, they weren't transparent about it or at least how bad it really was and made no effort to strip things like benefits, the intern program, swag, free lunches, etc. before cutting 120+ employees. The act of it was shocking but the delivery of it was very shocking to folks as well. I don't fault them for how it was done because that's never easy but I am shocked they didn't do more to prevent having to lay people off. Things in the last couple of months just felt very off brand for the empathetic environment that was sold to me when joining.

With the recent merger, our stock options deal has been a little lackluster. Although, they've improved it after hearing company feedback. I think allocation could also improve, too. We're taking on many new clients and scrambling to form teams, sometimes at the expense of already-existing ones.

We recently had a round of layoffs which were hard for everyone. The restructure makes sense to me, and think the new branch setup will be an upgrade once we get through the transition and change. Sometimes client team bureaucracy can get in the way of speed and building things the right way.

Now for the bad...After being bought earlier in the year, the company changed on day one. Obviously this is to be expected after an acquisition, but these changes were like tidal waves before a big storm. WT survived losing 75% of business duringCOVID without a single layoff, but couldn't hang or thrive for several months after the acquisition. I don't blame WT's leadership team for this, because it was likely so out of their control. That said however, I think the communication the last few months was lacking in transparency, which was always my favorite thing about the company. Throughout all the tech industry layoffs, WT maintained some belt-tightening, but the typical things that happen before lay offs weren't apparent, and that's why I think everyone is so hurt.

Compensation structure is very weak compared to elsewhere. No bonus. No new equity. No incentives for project performance.

For YEARS, WillowTree was, hands down, the BEST place to work. Leadership cared about employees. They actually LISTENED to us when we told them things. I was here for 5 years and had never seen leadership or management caught in even a half-truth, much less a full lie. They actually put their money where their mouth was and TOOK CARE of us, for years. And then we got bought. I thought maybe, if there was a place that could survive a buyout, it would be WillowTree. I was wrong. Very wrong. Seemingly overnight, we became a police-state corporate hellscape. Leadership, who (again -- for 5 YEARS) I'd never seen caught in even a half-truth, blindsided us with layoffs after months of telling us they wouldn't be happening. The NEXT DAY, leadership was telling us "We know we need to rebuild your trust." Like, what? You're gonna slap someone in the face and then be like "Oh man, I know you probably don't trust me right now." So insulting. And from that day forward, it was an entirely different company, with fun occurrences such as: - I'd mention something in confidence to someone and, next thing I knew, leadership was breathing down my neck about it. - I was strung along for 6 months waiting for a promotion. I was made to do a significant amount of paperwork to get the promotion. 3 TIMES. I didn't get the promotion. - We did a daily icebreaker for the company. I posted a completely innocuous one (that had been used before) asking people's favorite way to waste time online. Someone (high enough in leadership that they should have known better) took a screenshot and reported me straight to one of the highest members of leadership and said that my question could clearly be misconstrued as encouraging people to waste time online ON COMPANY TIME (?!?!). Said leader took it seriously and it ended up as official feedback on my record. - Leadership spent all day every day gaslighting everyone by pretending that we were the same exact company we'd always been (and if you don't believe me on this one, just read any of the comments WillowTree leadership has left on reviews since June -- it's like they're not even reading the comments) - After weaponizing the trust they built with us over the course of years to keep us complacent while they figured out who they were going to lay off, they also had the audacity to start what they called a dedication to "radical transparency." (And you can see this being mentioned as replies to several recent reviews). As though we employees were just going to forget that they lied to us when it was most convenient for them? Once again, very insulting that they considered us THAT naive. - Leadership, under the guise of the aforementioned "radical transparency," started holding the threat of more layoffs over our heads to make us work harder, like we couldn't see what they were doing. And this is a short list of just the last few months. All of this kills me to type. I was absolutely in LOVE with WillowTree. It was different for a long time. There was a time when I thought I'd retire here. But alas, it was not to be so and I recently left the company because of how bad things have become. So yea, you've been warned. Do not work here.

WillowTree has weak compensation compared to the rest of the industry. There is no room to negotiate salary regardless of tenure or position (these conversations are always cut short with the same scripted message). Compensation is constantly brought up as an issue for employees with seemingly no action taken to address it. Up until the Telus acquisition, employees were offered stock with promotions (except for the few instances where people were told they could not receive more). When confronted about compensation, leadership will point to in office perks and culture, though the only office with significant perks is the Charlottesville office. If you work remotely then you'll be subjected to messaging about frequent parties and social events that you're not invited to. Once we got through the worst of the pandemic, employees were back paid the money they lost to paycuts. Being back paid is nice, but I really struggled when my partner lost their job and I was left supporting both of us. I had hoped to see some more compensation as an appreciation for the sacrifice we made, but oh well. Promotion requirements change every year which is annoying. They're well documented, but the fact that everything at this company is constantly in flux makes it difficult to know what's going on. There are no bonuses.

Any leadership that is VP and above has a cult-like mentality that WillowTree is the next Google and that its fearless leaders can do no wrong. Management has no respect for any issues raised to them and HR is clueless, only recently seeming to remember it exists. Leadership is rotting from the inside out as they all pat themselves on the back after their paydays from the acquisition. One would hope that this turmoil wages on unknown to them, but can anyone really be that blind to the goings on of their own company? 

WillowTree loves to tell you all the things it’s done right, they didn’t lay off anyone during COVID, they donate to charity, they do pro bono work with clients, they have transparent pay bands, ‘Best Place to Work’ awards, etc. WillowTree is all flashy talking points but no substance- what everyone is being conveniently shielded from is the lack of transparency, appropriate compensation, zero psychological safety, game-playing, gaslighting, and discrimination. 

 Leadership sees so few ramifications for their own actions that most do what they want and manage how they want and blame any issues on IC. They fire people on a whim, creating confusion and fear when peers suddenly disappear from Slack, but then shrug and conveniently point back to never having laid anyone off. They prolong promoting and rewarding people and place so much weight on peer-to-peer feedback that it becomes a popularity contest. Engineers are shuffled between managers and teams so quickly it seems deliberate in order to avoid said promotion or reward. Allocation is not done with an employee’s best interest in mind, only the bottom line. Teams are strained beyond their capabilities and ICs are expected to go above and beyond to please clients with little to no support from management.

 WillowTree leadership constantly asks for good public reviews about the company so they can gain more paid-for awards, and the Kool-Aid drinkers will happily oblige, conveniently parroting the talking points they are fed back out into the world. Those who are unhappy, exhausted, or feel unsafe are afraid to speak up or seek help due to constant backlash and the likelihood that they’ll be called crazy instead of listened to.

At the end after the Telus merger they completely lied to everyone. Months and months of bragging about how "forward thinking" and "world class" they were only to let go of 10% of the company, outsource jobs. They avoided taking responsibility for misleading and ruining a culture of people who really believed and bought in to their business model and the companies care for it's employees. They became so caught up in presenting themselves as more than they are as a company and team by passive aggressively getting employees to post on LinkedIn and make BizDev for everyone. The content of work became aggressively boring and just an arm for lackluster companies to borrow head count to get boring and scopeless results.