Electronic Arts

Reasonably good compensation and benefits.

Lots of very smart people to work alongside.

There are good programs in place for growth and learning.

The technology is interesting to work on and cutting-edge.

Outside of finalizing, hours are flexible.

Overtime is a scheduled reality when shipping a game, even though management won't say it.

The company has the usual political turf wars that any large company has.

There is a lot of redundant effort for projects; sharing is not nearly as good as it should be.

The EA University runs out of useful information at about the SE2 level. There are no good courses for more senior engineers.

Let the engineers loose to do internal projects without oversight, something like Google's 20% projects.

Set up an internal open-source-like structure so we can share the best technology.

Don't mandate technology for the sake of being common, because we get the lowest common denominator.

Care about long-term productivity and maintenance rather than short-term gain; the short-term gain takes twice as long to fix next year.