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Politics get in the way of great products

Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Disney for 2 years
August 28, 2013
3.0
RecommendsNegative OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros
  • Being part of a well-known and respected brand
  • Perks (Disneyland is free, discounts on all merchandise)
  • Interesting projects
  • Travel budget
  • Friendly coworkers
Cons
  • Management abandons projects and changes its "strategy" every 3 months.

  • Politics between studios, e.g., "The engineering team rejected another Disney studio's poor software solution, but if we use it anyway, that other studio will like us better and we can then take over their projects! (Just like they took over our project last year..)"

  • Design by committee – usually a committee that is not familiar with the project. This slows down development and leads to mediocre results.

  • Project decisions are made behind closed doors. Direct communication between studios is discouraged unless it goes through approved managers.

  • Promotions appear to be completely random, sometimes rewarding talented individuals, other times promoting slackers.

Advice to Management

Communication is not a one-way street. If you hire competent engineers, it is well worth eliciting their feedback before starting yet another project which inexplicably fails to meet an arbitrary deadline created by the marketing department.

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