Electronic Arts

As I went through the interview stages with EA, I had the same concerns that anyone interviewing with EA would: after many years of terrible reviews and being rated as the worst company to work for, how has the company changed?

The answer from everyone was the same, but all in their own words, not some company line. Since Andrew Wilson took over as CEO, the poor culture is a thing of the past, and they've had no exposure to it (all were with the company for 1-3 years).

I took them at their word and accepted an offer.

The company structure is relatively flat, without tons of needless levels of management. Where at a typical large company you'd see a structure like:

• IC
• manager
• sr. manager
• director
• sr. director
• vp
• svp
• evp
• c-level

there are a few less levels of management here. This is a great thing, which allows decisions to be made faster without the typical management gridlock of slow-moving large companies.

Working at EA has been a great experience so far. My colleagues are fun to work with, and the company is showing record numbers. I've had exposure to all levels of the company, up to and including the CTO. Management is supportive of my career growth, and I'm getting to work on some great games.

I couldn't have hoped for a better experience, and my interviewers were right – the company has changed.

There's the traditional trade-off between a large company and a startup: small and agile with lots of risk and potential reward versus large, a bit slower (though not as slow as you might expect due to the management structure, as mentioned above), stable, and a guaranteed future. I've been with both large companies and startups, so I knew what to expect. As long as you do too, this isn't necessarily a con – it's just different.

Keep it up!