Great location, terrible environment for IT worker
Pros
Commute to Times Square is easy. Some genuinely smart people work here. It's a brand people actually recognize. Company work hours are pretty flexible.
Cons
Oh boy: Complete lack of direction from upper and middle management. Teams even under the same director actively do not speak to one another, causing a litany of fiefdoms, duplication of effort, and other forms of waste and intrigue. Nepotism is extremely strong here. Managers seem to heavily favor people with whom they have worked before. You can see waves of people flocking in from <insert company here> at a given time because they have hired someone in management from <insert company here>. No actual vetting of these people can occur and it's outright heresy to question. The company has a schizophrenic culture based on young people fresh into the field wanting to only do new things to older people stuck in the past wanting to only do things their way. There is often little to no middle ground or attempts to create standards, with phrases such as "it stifles innovation" strewn about. Retention rates are abysmal. In less than two years I have become a long-timer. That not only leads to a constant brain drain, but it has created so many promotions of the "last man standing" as to exacerbate the poor quality of the middle management. Promotions are also so irregularly given with some groups heavily favored by management over others without merit or reason that it hastens the departure of the actually talented.
