Electronic Arts

Tiburon is filled with some of the smartest people I've ever had the pleasure to work with. The people and culture are pretty good. There are plenty of team events and parties.

For those who like to work hard and be challenged, there will be plenty of it.

GREAT benefits package if you can get a full-time position.

The entire QA department is severely underpaid, especially those under the management level. Test Leads and QA Analysts can make 25k more a year working somewhere else with half the responsibilities and task load that Tiburon QA Management expects. They really prey on that "cool job" factor.

There is very little growth opportunity. It is possible to get a more senior testing role; however, it will take many, many years of service, as there are very few promotions. Often, testers are cycled in and out and perform many contract runs before being offered even a basic QA Tester full-time position. Even when promoted, the salary increase is minimal (75 cents an hour), yet the workload expectations increase as if you just received a 12k raise.

Even more difficult is getting a job outside of the QA department. Most testers come in with some form of degree in the digital field (design, art, etc.) and expect that after a cycle, they'll get a job offer into development. It can happen, but realistically, it's next to impossible, as the studio is in "contract" mode, meaning you will only get a full-time position in a development capacity by giving up benefits and full-time perks for a contracted position in the hopes that it will work out in the end. If they don't hire a contractor, then the job will go to an external candidate who used to play a specific sport in college and wants to try their hand at video game development.

Most of Tiburon's test efforts are coordinated with an "in-sourced" test center in a different state. This test center is meant to replace a lot of the manual/black box testing efforts that the Tiburon studio used to perform, while Tiburon is now supposed to be a white-box focus. After years of training, however, the in-sourced team continues to do such a poor job that Tiburon testers end up performing both jobs. This makes it very difficult to do anything correctly, as the teams are constantly stretched thin and are constantly hand-holding and re-training the in-sourced test team. The in-sourced team is also on the "contract" hiring mentality, so there are very few experienced testers carried over, furthering the problems with the center.

Pay your Quality Assurance teams a professional wage, or else you will soon find yourself with a junior and inexperienced test team who aren't able to handle the work you will be assigning them.

Know when to cut your losses, especially in regards to failing in-sourced test efforts that only save a few dollars. The game quality is suffering as a result of the constant revolving door at the in-sourced facility and lack of experience.

Quit hiring sports-related subject matter experts who don't have any development experience. Promote and reward those who have stuck by you, learned your tools/processes, and have proven themselves after many cycles.