Pros: Had an amazing culture for anyone with a nerdy background. Anything you were interested in, you could find others on campus that shared your interest. However, I'm conflicted if I should rate the company on my experience before things started going downhill or not.

Cons: If you are not on a game team, you are a second-class citizen. You are paid less and get fewer perks than those on game teams. Pay is much lower than industry standards in the region. After hearing about the mass exodus that's going on after layoffs, I'm glad I was one of the ones that was laid off. People are currently scrambling to change teams or get jobs with other companies. I know multiple people trying to get on game teams because they feel like they'd be safer in case of another round of layoffs. Honestly, with the amount of change going on at Blizzard at the moment, anything good about the company will be gone within a few years. I have a feeling the culture will change towards focusing more on profit rather than making good games in order to satisfy Bobby Kotick and ATVI's investors.

Pros: The games are inspiring and fun. Definitely, there’s a sense of history with Blizzard.

Cons: Everything is falling apart more than ever. Even before the layoffs and acquisition, Blizzard was getting destroyed by the weight of many years of poor decision-making. It's very unfortunate to see, but it's the truth. So many people have knives out, expecting politics to be played at every turn.

Pros: Cutting Edge software development (roughly a new thing here at Blizzard). Amazing staff and peers. You will feel like a family with your team, and Blizzard has tons of team-building events on most teams. Some teams are excluded from this by personal preference. Great and competitive pay for the SoCal area. It's not what you could make at a non-gaming company in SEA or SF, but it's definitely good for Irvine (engineering perspective only). Profit sharing is awesome. Everyone at Blizzard gets profit sharing if you are a full-time employee of Blizzard. The closer you are to games and the more seniority you have, the higher your share will be, but everyone gets something! On-campus classes to learn and expand your skills. This has been growing now for some time, with more and more classes becoming available. Tons of swag, access to Activision games as well, and being a part of the numerous Activision/Blizzard events hosted by the companies.

Cons: Large corporation politics: You will need to play nice and play fair, but also play the political game. Mostly meaning that knowing and befriending the right person can generally secure you a promotion. Hard work doesn't go unnoticed, but can be overshadowed due to nepotism or relationships. The numerous amount of teams and lack of alignment between game teams, services teams, and web and mobile teams can make it hard to know what is what. This also makes it difficult to incite change or purpose change due to the sheer number of dependencies needed. Your personal growth within the company can be a bit of a confusion. Most of your managers don't really understand growth within the company or your path for promotion. Most people will tell you to speak to your manager, but the managers themselves fail to understand the organizational structure, halting you dead in your tracks. If you want to climb the ladder here, be prepared to do your homework and proactively look for opportunities; they won't come to you.