Instrument reviews

3.1

59% would recommend to a friend

(79 total reviews)
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Laurel Burton

13% approve of CEO

17% positive business outlook

Instrument has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 79 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Instrument employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

79 reviews
2.0
Apr 6, 2020

Yikes!!

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The best reason to work at Instrument are the people. There are some really passionate, talented, and caring people that are engaged in creating quality work as a team. They offer comprehensive benefits, a very generous time off policy, and 401k matching.

Cons

There are a couple major red flags about Instrument that should be noted: 1. The cliques: Although I graduated from high school a long time ago, Instrument put me right back in the throes of being 16 years old navigating a whole slew of toxic people. Each team forms it's own clique so my advice is make sure you fit in with your team or you will have a miserable experience. 2. "Diversity/Inclusion/Equity": Instrument makes a lot of claims about inclusion and diversity but it's 100% lip service. If you identify as an underrepresented group be prepared to watch certain colleagues (read: white colleagues) be presented with opportunities and be handled with kid gloves while you get told something about your "energy" is off with no concrete feedback. Instrument is a place where having an opinion is as good as taking action. You will succeed here if you have the loudest, "woke-est" voice even if you are incredibly difficult to work with or don't actually practice the ideas you preach. 3. Growth: you will not grow personally or professionally here. A lot of people in management seemed to have gotten to those positions by being friends with existing management or failing upward. As a result, they bring no real leadership skills to the table. 4. Lack of Pay: If you move here from somewhere else, expect to take a pay cut. No cost of living raise, no transparency around salary. 5. The Work: You'll be making marketing sites that all bleed together because the same people are in charge of making creative decisions and will steamroll/speak down to you if you dare present ideas that are outside their bubble.

2.0
Mar 31, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You will meet and have the opportunity to work with a lot of talented creatives, you'll mostly like get poached by Apple, Nike, or Google. You get to work on high profile tech projects, lots of blue chip companies. You can coast easily, work is not very difficult or challenging, you can autopilot on certain teams. Thumbs up on 6 month business outlook, because they make a lot of money - and you will have job security.

Cons

Leadership is constantly restructuring teams, so be prepared to move around a lot. Lot’s of folks have recently left due to a salary discrepancy, (most folks that are leaving have been there for years and are getting paid less than the new hires in the same role.) Weird concentration of hires are coming from NYC. Majority of the studio is composed of senior levels folks. Junior folks are actually seniors labeled as juniors. They like to stick to their winning formula, very seldom do anything frontier pushing or out of their typical work or comfort zone. Feels like you’re in high school, lots of cliques and gossip.

1.0
Mar 2, 2020

Not what they sell you on

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

• It's a beautiful building to work in. • There are some really amazing humans, below the leadership tier. • They currently offer a generous professional development fund. • Lots of events that bring in talented speakers. • If you like their aesthetic, you'll get to replicate it over and over again.

Cons

• They know all the right things to say to get you in the door but once you're there, you'll quickly realize it was all just lip service and all the things they promised are never coming. • As others have pointed out, it is incredibly cliquey. It felt like high school with the jocks and the mean girls running the campus. • Individuals with tenure seem to fail up. Complaints would regularly be filed against management but rather than dealing with those complaints, those individuals would either be promoted into new roles or the individuals filing the complaint would simply be shuffled to other teams. • HR was virtually non-existent. If you filed a complaint with HR, they would either tell you why they felt it was a non-issue or worse, they would go tell the individual that you filed a complaint against them. It left many feeling hopeless and it wasn't uncommon to see someone tucked away in tears. • Senior new hires are typically convinced to accept lower pay and a lower title with the promise of a promotion once they learn the Instrument way. With each review cycle comes a new excuse on why they are unable or unwilling to make those promotions. As a result, senior hires are a bit of a revolving door. At various points we were clapping out multiple people in a single a day. • Designers are regularly pulled mid project to chase new business opportunities. It was incredibly frustrating to not be able to see a project through. • Timelines and team size were typically insufficient which often resulted in many having to work from home on nights and weekends to pick up the slack. It completely contradicted the work/life balance they have promoted for so long. • Pay does not meet market rate. Honestly, the list of cons goes on and on but the bottom line is that I, like many, walked into my time with Instrument with so much excitement and passion and in the end, it was the darkest period of my career.

Viewing 64 - 66 of 79 Reviews

Glassdoor has 97 Instrument reviews submitted anonymously by Instrument employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Instrument is right for you.