Pros
- I only suggest using this company as a stepping stone to get your foot off the door at a career in UX, and as a way for foreigners to get a chance at working at an American company.
- The one good thing they do is they are very knowledgable and good at their UX design process, and very talented. They also are always willing to provide a helping hand, and you learn a lot while here.
Kontras
- Absolutely no work-life balance. Depending on your time zone, it's not uncommon to start work at 5 or 6am, and/or work until 10 or 11pm at night.
- Ridiculously underpaying. Pays half the market rate, how do you expect to keep employees in a competitive SF Bay Area at such low salaries? It's clear that this place is a factory, designed to attract, burn out, and replace low-level designers.
- Terrible managers. You'll be micromanaged and second guessed on every design decision and expected to do a ton of imaginary work to fit into their rigid design process. Yes, the process is good, but the irony of having such as rigid design process in UX where if you go against it you're reprimanded severely, seems antithesis to the philosophy of UX that encourages creative problem solving..
- Their 6 month "apprenticeship" process where you're a contract employee, at first you think "oh I'm given the responsibility of a full-time employee!" No, that just means you're getting paid a THIRD or QUARTER of market rate and expected to do the same work.
- Terrible or no benefits. 10 days PTO a year, no 401(k), stock, bonus, etc.
- Bad hardware. Bulky outdated Macbook Pro that was slow and clunky.