Blizzard

Excellent basic benefits (health, vacation, sick).

Fun company events.

It's always sunny in Irvine.

Perks such as affordable food, a free gym, and lots of clubs and activities if you're new to the area and would like to make friends.

The CEO seems genuine in his vision for the company.

When I first arrived in Irvine, I felt very welcomed by the company.

I was hired and inspired by some incredible talent with a clear focus of "Gameplay First." I left, like many other talented, passionate, morally aligned professionals, deciding to not participate in the rampant “Bro Culture” in the tech department. I write this due to the lack of action the company took while I was an employee.

Some highlights of the bro-culture are:

• Clear promotion of your bro buddies, even when they lack any leadership, mentorship, or process knowledge. Leadership is seeing rising stars as a threat to their lack of skills.
• Listening to your peers dreading to present their projects, describing the experiences as hellish, brutal, and hazing.
• Listening to your peers debate if they should do the right thing or do what the boss wants.
• A shift from the Blizzard value of “Gameplay First” to a Microsoft culture of “Just execute anything” in the hopes your bro boss will promote you.
• A fear of talking to HR about issues due to past employees being “outed” by HR.
• Some keep a tally of how many meetings they go without seeing women in any Eng/PM leadership roles.
• The mass exiting of women in the tech org.
• Most of upper management will drive their “Honda work car” to the office, not to remind employees who can barely pay rent in one of the most expensive areas of the country that their annual bonuses are 5x, 10x, or 20x more than those who are crunching hours.
• Watching talented Engineers and Program Managers get overlooked for promotion or new roles only to hear a Bro has hired another MS employee (year after year).
• Watching discipline experts not be valued due to their lack of “Bro-ness”.

Whatever your strategy was in the past few years in the tech org, it wasn't working. Good talent is afraid to speak up and/or leaving in droves.