Hero Digital Reviews

Don't be fooled by the pomp and circumstance during the interview process. The management at HERO will tell you they are open to change and suggestions to improve - they are not. If it hasn't been "done this way", it won't happen. HERO does a great job at selling you on how cool they are to work for during the interview process, but they are just good at hiding all the skeletons in their closets. Most full time employees have been there for less than 12 months. Ask in your interviews how long people have been there, you'll be hard pressed to find a non-co-founder there since conception. - You must interview with the entire management staff of the company before getting hired. It's clear when meeting with the managers that they are unfamiliar with what your role is and it's unclear why you're meeting with that person beyond a quick personality check, which should be more more efficiently done with panel interviews to minimize wasted time for everyone. On average, new employees should expect to interview with 15-20 people for "approval" before getting hired. Of these people, expect 2-4 of them to be relevant to your position at the company. - Management: Management consists of people who worked together at a now defunct company. They started HERO and are bonded tightly. Should any of the managers have negative feedback about you, your direct manager will reprimand you based off that information without directly talking to you for your input on the matter. The co-founders are all "managers" of the company, however, they are all lacking management skills and were promoted beyond their core ability. HERO's mindset is where the employee messed up, so don't expect this to improve at the management level. There is no listed org chart for the company, so it's challenging to know who to reach out to since each employee has an acting boss on each project her or she is working on along with his or her actual boss. (On average, you can find yourself with more than three managers to report to.) - HERO under-utilizes their tools for effective communication. Each employee has access to IM, video conferencing, email. etc., however, communication is broken throughout the organization. If you can't directly tap your co-worker on the shoulder to ask a question, you will not get a response. It's part of the company culture to use the excuse of being busy for a means to not reply to any of these communication channels. It's a routine habit for employees to skip client facing and internal meetings without notice or without communication - essentially they come and go as they please with disregard to the risk they are causing to their co-workers and the overall client projects. - HERO has no process. Every project is ran differently and each Project Manager works in his or her own way. Nothing is repeatable so you never know what the expectations are for a team member. The clients aren't receiving the critical parts of a project in terms of communication, deliverable due dates, and project schedules, which causes employees to work very long hours to meet "sudden" deadlines that could have been prevented. - HERO has no on-boarding plan. You are handed a laptop with a few emails on your first day and set free to determine your benefits, set your computer up to work similar to those who you work with, and to be prepared to jump on your first project that afternoon. There are no best practice documents and there are no new hire meetings to acclimate you or to assist with general on-boarding questions. - HERO works by utilizing mostly contractors for their operations. There is no on-boarding for the contractors and projects aren't built to accommodate the risk in the schedule for adding someone new to the project and company mid-work cycle. This often results in a crunch for all employees to work long and late hours to meet deadlines. HERO has a very poor projection and resource staffing methodology that leaves a constant state of risk on all client facing matters. You often can't promise a client when they will see a certain resource join a project or when they will lose that resource as people are suddenly reallocated to the highest bidder on a weekly basis. - HERO's projections leave significant risk for current employees to not have enough work to justify their continued employment. HERO doesn't have a steady workflow due to their investment in contract positions so full time employees aren't the focus of resource allocation. Often full time employees find themselves nervous as to whether additional work is coming in for their skill-set and if they'll have enough to stay busy to justify their positions. - There is no real need to be in the office, however, HERO strongly encourages you to be visible in the office. There isn' much culture, people don't interact beyond project conversations and no real bonds are formed for many of the employees so you'll more or less go into the office in hopes that no one will take over the SONOS with crap music that day.

There are a few bad apples in the office - and unfortunately, they're in some of the top leadership. One of the managing partners of the Philadelphia office is extremely toxic, demoralizing, and only cares about HIS bottom line. The review titled "Great coworkers, horrible leadership" hits the nail on the head on so many things (especially the boys club and Mean Girls supporting cast aspects) and I just want to add my voice to that. This managing partner is toxic, demoralizing, and at times - extremely rude and and aggressive. Many people have seen him scream his employees, sometimes to the point of tears. No one should EVER have to work in such an environment. If you say anything even remotely "off" to him in a meeting, or between coworkers - you're on his black list, and he'll find a way to get you fired or make your life hell until you quit. I've seen it multiple times. It happened to me. He has also threatened lawsuits against past employees who have left to work elsewhere, AND their new employers. To him, you are just another number on his bottom line. He doesn't care about you, or your well being. He cares how much profit you're bringing into the company, and his pocket. There are a few other bad apples that contribute to toxicity sprinkled throughout the office, such as in the project management and development departments. There is little to no career growth at Hero. You will be stagnant. Sometimes they give out new title "promotions" for departments with high turnover or if they're afraid someone will leave, but these are empty. You will be overworked, and there's a good chance you'll be underpaid. You'll take your work stress home with you. Weak leadership in multiple departments, especially development and QA. Lots of bad practices. A lot of the clients are unexciting, and some you might actually have ethical problems with.