Hallmark Labs reviews

A core of strong personalities dominate the company culture. Management up and down the hierarchy tend not to favour 'quiet' types very well. Favoritism is endemic. Strong work ethic and actual talent are not enough to succeed here - you will also be expected to brown-nose and boot-lick a little to remind the higher-ups of how valuable you are. Management also possess the awful habit of insisting the company plans carefully, before going back on promises and sometimes even whole project roadmaps. Knee-jerk decisions that benefit nobody are commonplace. Communication from the top can also be lazy and poor, and you will be blamed (and made an example of) for your failure to follow the incoherent directions that trickle down. This is especially true if you haven't managed to follow the crucial guideline stated at the end of the previous paragraph. At times, it feels as though the company is performing well despite some of the people up top, rather than because of them. Finally, despite the company promoting a 'good work/life' balance as one of their key selling points, development death marches can and will happen, thanks to the regular mis-steps management make. All too often, the company is Agile in mantra alone.

Hallmark Labs continuously talks about being innovative and keeping up with the ever-changing digital space but throws away the products and departments that would help push Hallmark into those spaces. Instead, the focus is pushed towards their physical greeting cards and physical products. Updates to software take a full year to be approved, just as the newest software is on the horizon. Along with an intense fear of “The Cloud”, the micromanaging of Hallmark Corporate and the constant revolving door of employees causes the roadmaps to get longer and longer until Hallmark Corporate decides it didn’t see the growth that it wanted in the few months they decided to look and axes the project entirely. On top of everything, any feedback given is either waved away or outright ignored. The same problems come up over and over with no changes.