Pros
- Autonomy over being in-office makes for great work-life balance. I was able to easily complete my work in under 40 hours/week, which gave me more time to live life without compromising my quality of work. - Company provides equipment and all programs needed, it's new and very high-quality. I was permitted to use Adobe CC outside working hours for personal projects. - Great pay for creatives (was expecting $50,000 starting, but was offered $70,000 straight out of college with a BFA), good PTO (15 days starting), paid volunteer time off (2 days annually) - Great benefits (health insurance, life insurance, HSA options, fertility assistance services, elective dental & vision) - Paid training for useful skills. I received accredited training for digital accessibility, as well as time off to attend Adobe MAX each year. If you want a job that’s not too hard but pays GREAT and allows you to actually have a life, work here! If you want to advance and feel fulfilled in your career, work elsewhere.
Kontras
- Incompetent and ineffective managers—they had no real power to do anything for their underlings, and most of them seemed to have gotten their position based on tenure rather than qualifications. Some of the most competent, valuable people were working in lower positions than they deserved for years. - No advancement, managers often promote from outside the company - Frequent layoffs make for a tense work environment, and often lead to abandonment during projects. I worked as the sole designer on a long-term project that spanned 4 months (it was a fun project too, and the most autonomy I had during my time at SS). We started out with 2 other academic designers on this project and by the end of the project, people dropped like flies and it was literally just me pulling this ship out to shore. It was ridiculous. Also, due to the nature of everyone working remotely, you never find out that someone has been laid off until you attempt to contact them regarding a project and their name has just...disappeared from Slack. You usually don't find out until weeks (or even months) after they've been laid off. - Management is not upfront about areas to personally improve; there's definitely a culture of avoiding stepping on toes rather than help everyone reach their full potential through constructive feedback. Quarterly performance reviews with management were encouraged by corporate but in no way enforced, which only increased the opaque culture. - Mostly templated work set up by senior designers; very little autonomy, even for basic fixes (towards the end of my employment there, I had to run absolutely *everything* by the senior designers/management, even little things like adjusting an obvious orphan/widow).