Pros
- Pay is pretty good, but you're trapped in Glendale, CA. Where is that? ...Exactly - Benefits package is legit - There is free lunch, but it's Eat Club. If your old company had it, you'll know what I mean. But hey, it's free. - You can say you work for a LA's tech unicorn. - There are dogs and I like dogs.
Cons
I wouldn't necessary call these "cons". I'd call them the things that led to my ultimate disillusionment at this company. ST was not my first job, nor my second, so my perspective is going to be quite a bit different than the doe-eyed new grads whose optimism I wish I had. 1) The Bait and Switch: when you are a prospect for one of their open job requisitions everything seems like it's going to be PERFECT. Reality check: nothing is perfect, which means... (you'll get it when you finish reading). You get pumped up on their electrolyte water and put in your 12 hour days only to find that your caffeine intake has skyrocketed and you spend more time with your coworkers than is normal. I'd say that tenure at ST can bring you to a point where everything seems to be like the perception/reality part of (500) days of summer. 2) "False promise for you, false promise for you, false promise for you": when I think about all the things my peers and I have been told, I can probably write them on Jenga pieces, stack them all up, then try to pull out every single false promise until the whole thing falls down. That's what happens when you get built up by your supervisors and the only thing you feel like they are consistent in is lack of follow through. 3) A Path to Nowhere: this is what I like to call their career mapping/planning. Are you really good at your job, maybe even the best at it? Good luck being promoted because you might be kept there for a long time since you are likely carrying the entire team on your back. Probably with nothing to show for it, too. Sometimes you'll see people who get promoted before you and think to yourself, "What did I do wrong?" I'll save you the trouble, it's not what you did wrong, it's that you did everything right. Confusing, huh? 4) The Unprofessionalism is REAL - if someone has an action item for you and you don't have it in writing, it will fall into the blackhole where all the other action items that were long forgotten about go to die. 5) Age Ain't Nothing but a Number - ST does have age diversity in the company to an extent, so I'm not saying that they don't. But a lot of people have not been in the trenches long enough to know who they are in their roles. Many people are young job hoppers looking for the quick rise to the top, but the part that I felt was missing was the presence of the proper people for these youngins to learn from. They need better examples and maybe (someday) managers that are less focused on their own promotions and instead helping their team members with theirs 6) One thing today, another thing tomorrow - the feedback loop for performance is so inconsistent. One day you're spoken to because you need to be doing XYZ better, then when you start doing XYZ better, ABC needs to be addressed. Oh, you did better in ABC, now QRS is why you're having a one-on-one again. Sometimes people are made to feel like they are never going to be good enough 7) Eat Club... like I said, it's free 8) Rooms are FILTHY: I hope they actually start wiping those down with disinfectant... sickness runs rampant because things don't seem to be wiped down enough. 9) Employees should be able to do a MANDATORY but also ANONYMOUS ExPand Review on their direct supervisor. We rate ourselves, we rate our peers, but we don't give a comprehensive and in depth review of our managers? It doesn't make sense to me. Everyone is too scared to write the truth on the presumably anonymous ones for fear of being figured out. Yet managers have a DIRECT EFFECT on their team's success, the same way a team member has a direct effect on their manager's. I think rating managers in a in-depth way that is formally recorded is even more important than rating some random person in another department that eats lunch on a different floor. Each team should have their own version of a calibration of their departments leaders. 10) A Guide to PTO Guilt: work for a company that has unlimited PTO, be part of a team that's spread thin with goals that even Marie Kondo couldn't Tidy Up. Guys, gals... does it bring you joy? The rest is up to you.