Great co-workers, not so great upper management
Pros
Overall the experience at HSAD was good. Co-workers were great and easy to work with. The management at HSAD was great, the real problem lies with their main client LG.
Cons
Working with the main and only client was messy. Clients frequently screamed at the team, the team had weekly status meetings that was focused on upper management being overly negative towards department heads and providing very little leadership. Most of the co-workers I spoke to felt demoralized after those status meetings. Project Management was non-existent. This organization is very new to working in agile, and frequently the upper management are still stuck in a waterfall mindset. I got the feeling that the main job was proving that you can do what you think the next management level wants to do vs really researching and understanding consumer needs. Experienced UX staff will be frustrated by the process (or lack of a process). UX designers that are new will find that the experience gained won't help them in their next role.
