rating for Electronic Arts Inc.

EA/Tiburon - STAY AWAY posted on October 06, 2006

If living in Hell is your bag of tea, then by all means work for EA. Their Orlando office (Tiburon) is especially bad. Open pits of cubicles with snotty people sitting right next to you who DEMAND that you email/PM them instead of talk. Their recruiters promise you the sun and moon and a fat benefit package, but you'll want to take your own life within six months. They talk abour work/life balance. Just try to have a life. They won't tell you to work 16 hour days and every weekend. It just sort of works out that way. Derivative titles based on last year's version, and next year you'll be working long, soul destroying hours to increment a '2007' to '2008' on some over-hyped sports title that frankly gets worse every year. Don't like the game teams? Work on a 'central technology' team and be permanently in 'crunch mode' (everybody's deadline is your deadline) pointlessly reinventing wheels forever. Miss a deadline, it's your job. No job security at all. Move to Orlando and discover there's no other employment of this type within 100 miles, so you'll have to MOVE AGAIN when they get tired of you. North Orlando its self is pure, unplanned urban sprawl. If you like traffic jams, live in Orlando. You'll note the interview time is scheduled to bring you in late, and they'll put you up right across the highway from the office. Stay an extra day and see what driving at rush hour is like.

Have a lawyer review that employee agreement! They WILL try to collect those 'generous' moving expenses back (with many mystery charges), even if they LAY YOU OFF WITHOUT CAUSE. Talk to other employers/recruiters about EA. Having worked for EA is a LIABILITY. Most former EA employees are considered ireedeemably 'damaged', and having worked for them, I have to agree. Anyone who truly 'learns' what EA/Tiburon has to teach is not going to be worth a damn to anyone, not even EA.

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