Great for your portfolio but beware of toxic owner/CEO
Pros
Unique work with some very big names in a wide range of industries from entrainment and action sports to lifestyle and high end fashion brands. Great for expanding your portfolio and gaining experience in a wide range of fabrication techniques and materials. Owner is amazing at sales and networking so workflow is usually fairly steady if not heavy. Often get free gear or swag from clients as well as invites/access to high profile events etc.
Cons
Owner seems to micro manage every aspect of a project/build even though they have little to no fabrication experience. Owner also has a tendency to blowup on employees for little to no apparent reason, often chewing people out in the middle of the shop for everyone else to see and hear. If he's having a bad day there's a pretty good chance someone else is going to be having a rough time as well. For anyone who deals with anxiety or PTSD this can be extremely triggering, especially when it comes out of the blue. There is a very cult like mentality at SPMD, the CEO actually said "we all need to drink the kool-aid". The owner has a very obvious need to be liked and seen as "cool". He acts like your buddy but rarely actually reciprocates on the "friendship" unless it benefits him or his business directly. He is fairly charming and has a way of manipulating people and getting them to believe that he has their best interests in mind when in fact he's looking for someone to spy on the other employees and report back to him. I've been on both sides of this scenario. He tried to coerce me into being an informant and when I made it clear that I didn't want to play those games I was put on the other side of the table. I've been ganged up on by management and gas-lighted more than once. It's very unsettling to have three people gang up on you and put words in your mouth and make you question what you actually said. Again, very disturbing if you deal with behavioral health issues. This might explain the very high employee turnover rate. In the year and a half that I worked there I saw no less than, if not more than, 15 people come and go in various positions (this is a small company mind you, 10 - 12 people on staff at any given time). I cannot speak to their reasons for leaving and I imagine a few were independent contractors but after nine months at SPMD, I had the most seniority there aside from the CEO. Every single position had quit or was let go at least once over the course of my time there. Compensation is said to be at industry standard although for me personally it was barely above the low end and the cost of living in California was disproportionate to my wages. But there was always the proverbial carrot on a stick to reach for. Only problem with that is you never get the carrot, maybe a small bite at best. Owner puts on a big show about caring for his workers yet seems to do everything in his power to give them as little as possible in terms of monetary compensation. There was always a reason to not give a wage increase, and anytime there was an increase it always seemed to follow a verbal thrashing from the owner. They say that they care about you as a person but when you actually need any real world help outside of work they seem to have no sympathy for a regular persons day to day struggles and often assume you are lying. My direct supervisor's wife would regularly contact my wife to collect information in order to corroborate my excused absences, etc. The best I ever got was self help affirmations which are of little help when you're dealing with real life struggles. Owner thinks that if he can do it so can you, failing to realize that everyone has their own unique path in life and you cannot compare two people like that, especially a political refugee to someone born into a well-to-do family.