Pros
- Decent pension and other benefits - Flexible working
Cons
- Way too hard to get anything done! - Impossible to figure how to do anything as a manager - all the BT internal systems are terrible and all the guidance on how to use them is out of date - No design standards - so no way to benchmark good design and hold things accountable to a standard - Lots of duplication of work because of weird team structures and no one talks to each other - Team structures made no sense e.g. app and web being split into 2 teams and with no comms or collaboration so the designs were inconsistent - Designers are unsupported - they're pushed to work really fast to ever changing timelines and requests without ensuring they have the skills and capability to deliver good quality work - Lots of work happens in last minute scheduled “design sprints” - it's unnecessary added stress, excludes people who cannot drop everything with 1 to 2 days notice, and shouldn't be the go-to way to deliver basic work that should be able to happen in product teams - Some design managers have 10-15+ line reports - how can anyone do a good job managing that many people? - No product roadmaps! - Not a lot of cross team collaboration - The majority of developers are contractors - another thing that makes it hard to do good, strategic joined up work - Unclear roles and responsibilities - e.g. design manager vs design lead; specialist product designer vs designer - Feedback was listened to but not acted on ever - Lots of ego in design leadership and lots of micromanaging - Super hierarchical - felt like I had no influence - Feature design rather design as problem solving - Pay is shockingly below market rate - Toxic behaviour - e.g. telling a manager about a bad experience working with someone and them responding "well I've never seen that happen or experienced that with that person". - The London office digital floor hardly has any monitors or proper ergonomic desk set ups - make it make sense! ...I'd go in and have to work from a couch or cafe table. I could go on...I agree with a lot that's been said in other design role reviews on here.