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Bohemia Interactive Simulations

Is this your company?

Not perfect, but a passionate place to master your craft - Development Director Bohemia Interactive Simulations Employee Review

4.0
May 6, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I've been with the company since it was a small startup, and helped it grow to 300+ employees. This remains a place where anyone with passion can "get a shot", and where you can forge your own destiny as an employee. We have tough hiring process but we don't care who you are or where you come from. Most of our development team comes to this as their "first job". When they leave, the skills built here let them get jobs they never would have gotten otherwise. Working here forces you to become a MASTER of your craft. To succeed, our staff and teams need to operate EXTREMELY effectively. This does end up burning out some people and others leaving (or being forced out) with a bitter taste in their mouth. However, I've heard from hiring managers at the companies who poach our employees that "BISim makes the best employees, better than anywhere else we can hire from!" Our business model is challenging and is one of the main sources of employee frustration. We bid on hundreds of customer contracts per year, and so it's a bit unpredictable exactly how many of those will actually get signed, and when. This makes project & release scheduling much more complicated than "we're going to work all year on one game, and release it in December". Having been to many game conferences I can say that our development process isn't perfect, but it is MUCH better than the average game studio. Our pay used to be relatively low, however I can confidently say that for years now we've been meeting or exceeding average market rates in most locations and positions. You definitely would get MORE working in banking or big tech... But you would usually would get LESS working in games or at a smaller tech company.

Cons

The work can get "samey" after a few years, which leads to higher employee turnover at the ~5 year mark. In development, we still haven't mastered our business model so life can get stressful. Eg, suddenly having to cancel a project, or having to end it earlier than devs would want. It's much better than in previous years, but some tough problems never seem to get solved. Management culture is improving, but we still tend towards promoting the best individual-contributors as opposed to the best people-leaders and project-managers. I don't think we have any "toxic" managers, but some lack true competence as managers (though they may be great individual contributors). Internally we don't typically "groom" people for management, so this is unsurprising. It's a passionate environment, but the work isn't as creative as other industries (at least for artists & designers). It's a very programmer-centric company and industry. Other crafts tend to be misunderstood, under-appreciated, and not used to their full potential like in other industries. For example, UX Design is of primary importance in the consumer-facing web/app industry, but mostly optional (and even a hinderance that slows down programming) here. Nor does the military consider "ease of use" as a priority (just look at the real-world systems used to control eg a tank).

Explore other reviews about Bohemia Interactive Simulations

5.0
Sep 9, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great place to work. Gain a lot of knowledge. There is a lot of teamwork and this is a great work environment.

Cons

There are no cons when it comes to working at Bohemia Interactive Simulations.

3.0
Nov 18, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

During the transition period between one owner to another, it was easy to just work and be left alone. That ended in 2023 with the finalization of the acquisition.

Cons

What was once the story of the team and its talent has become a story of the management team and their brilliant and brutal axe use to churn the attrition chum pot. Mixed messages from the moment the new team took over. Expand the offices but cut staff. Created a bizarre bonus structure that allowed people to "nominate" each other for minor "award bonuses" which from the jump felt like kindergarden style sniping games. Cringe restrictions on the touted "exciting new bonus opportunities" even limited the number of dollars spent and required a lot of sucking up and "free extra work and donations of your invention" to get anywhere. As soon as the company was acquired, the newly appointed director/CEO/President Rahul Thakkar (formerly at Boeing and worked in safety, how laughable, he continues to be named on patents and works from his lavish Loudoun county VA home but requires everyone else to RTO at least part-time) -- the self-proclaimed "face of Shrek" who "won an Oscar" for innovating what is perhaps the least creative thing, production-focused micromanagement software for DreamWorks in the 1990s - brought out the acquire-reduce katana to slice up non-Czech offices, previously acquired under other management, close offices in Asia, and bungle the sales team causing a net negative within the first 12 months. Within 18 months, the US office had imploded by 50%, with senior level leadership of a formerly independent R&D focused office among first to go, I among them. Now under BAE they are rebranding and smooshing the company together with a zombie acquisition from a previous cycle to create BAE OneArc. Presumably OneArc refers to the "sight of the sunrise over planet Earth when orbiting in space" which really captures the gaming and warsim subculture of the company, dontchathink?

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