Pros: Provided great support to interns, even though it was a virtual internship.

Cons: I wanted to see more intern-specific events while understanding that it is hard to frequently hold an event virtually.

Pros: On-site amenities: * Basketball * Volleyball * Cafeteria * Gym Diversity and inclusion programs. Learning programs. Clubs and meetup groups. Overall positive culture. Donates to world disasters and participates in programs such as the Make-A-Wish Foundation. Yearly holiday parties, renting out entire theme parks for an evening. Bi-yearly profit sharing. Vested stocks. Blizzard employees also get discounts on gear and all Activision Blizzard games. Free balance and game codes to redeem. Ride-share programs and raffles. Blizzard fans are everywhere and extremely kind.

Cons: Culture differs per game team. Experience at Blizzard may vary as a result. Different teams have led to silos in shared code and cross-communication. Each team is constantly reinventing the wheel. It is better to leave Blizzard and get rehired for a pay increase than to stay and receive a pay increase through reviews. When projects were cancelled, people were allotted time to find new teams; that practice has since changed. Blizzard has only become slower at making games over time, which affects bonuses and profit sharing. There is little accountability for executive decisions that are passed down to its employees instead. Some teams drastically need more people, and this has led to burnout and turnover.

Pros: Working at Blizzard is undoubtedly fun. Out of the thousands of employees, there will be awesome people that you can clique with and create your own niche. For me, it has been connecting with the few people that "get it," are highly visionary, and don't put up with the corporate nonsense. These are life-long connections that shouldn't be taken for granted. The on-campus gym is another fabulous place for this.

Cons: This is purely from a QA perspective, but from what I gather, there are similarly unfortunate organizational practices in other departments. Too much of an old boys club thing going on in management. I believe this stems from several core reasons. For one, there are very few valid metrics in evaluating performance, so both personnel and project management become a trust/friendship/lets-just-have-a-good-time orgy that favors conformity and obedience over truly amazing work. QA in the game industry is very behind other software testing, so the standards are already quite low. Second, I think this stems from the types of personalities within the organization. Gamers hiring other gamers turns into a very incestuous, fear-driven, sometimes even anti-social, approach to solving problems. To be agile, one must first dig into themselves, challenging who you are and what you are. Insecurity acts as a barrier. I am on a very awesome team that is trying to incorporate software testing practices into our daily routines, but management does more to impede our progress than to empower. Why should we accept sub-par wages when we're the ones trying to up the level of professionalism?