Pros
There are some genuine, great, and kind people at the company. The Rocket family of company benefits are good overall, though Detroit Labs does not have access to all of the FoC benefits. Included are medical, vision, dental, 401k match up to $2500 (4 year vesting schedule), unlimited PTO (more in cons below), paid parental leave, paid emergency leave, $1500 personal/professional budget per year. Full time remote, even after the office reopens after COVID closure. Opportunity to work on multiple different projects. Opportunity to learn more than one area of the business, ie. dev or QE or design (though this is highly dependent on how projects are staffed and who is given the opportunity) Investment in more junior individuals, including through internships and apprenticeships (paid 3 month training program for those without professional experience in tech)
Cons
Very clique based. There is an “in” crowd (who have sway over what leadership hears about teams), and an “out” crowd. This is perpetuated by leadership inviting the “in” crowd to special meetings where leadership hears about team health from those individuals only, and not from others on the team. There is stratification of your work experience at Detroit Labs based on which bucket you fall into. Advancement and salary depends purely on your ability to negotiate and spin a story, and not on your actual contributions and quality of work. In the new review process leadership compares individuals against each other during their review quarter, and allocates raises/titles based on that, so you are competing against others in a dog and pony show. Unlimited PTO, though not the policy per se, more in the implementation. In past years at Detroit Labs, one could actually utilize the unlimited PTO. Now, depending on the team you are on, it is weaponized against team members, who get told that they “aren’t team players” or “don’t take the team into account” when trying to schedule time off. There are also people on the team who will cancel their vacations and then lash out or passively aggressively comment on people who set up healthy boundaries with work and take their time off. There is a focus on JEDI (justice, equity, diversity, and inclusion) at the company, and many of the initiatives/workgroups are useful. However, the leadership overall does not address inequity within the company itself. An example of this is titling - the percentage of male developers at the company that have senior title or above is 3 times higher than the percentage of female developers at the company who have senior title or above (with similar/longer tenure, years of experience, team experience, etc.). Double speak from leadership. Leadership likes to tout that Detroit Labs is “people-first”, but in reality, Detroit Labs is now “client-first”. Toxic teams are left to fester and burn people out, and the finger is pointed at individuals as the problem on the team, instead of addressing the actual problems on the team, such as culture, structure, ownership, and transparency. Team culture is highly dependent on the team you are placed on, though more and more teams are adopting the “client is always right” model. Significantly lower salary than market rate (30 - 100%). This used to be offset by the many benefits that Detroit Labs offered (including better life/work balance in the past), but those benefits are now offered by and done better by other companies out there. The culture at Detroit Labs has changed significantly for the worse in the past few years, and the low salary can no longer be justified or offset due to the changes. Titling at Detroit Labs is not industry standard, and that is a detriment to all employees, especially to people underrepresented in tech. (8 years for Senior, 15 years for Lead)