Studio 216 Reviews

3.1

45% would recommend to a friend

(12 total reviews)

Jamie Fleming

100% approve of CEO

63% positive business outlook

Reviews by job title

12 reviews
2.0
29 Jan 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very flexible hours, great staff. Occasionally there are free lunches, and often snacks in the office.

Cons

High turnover rate, no benefits, average pay, and no opportunities to hone and grow skills of any sort. The upper management are only concerned with making money, and have no interest in how the technology works. Because of this they will often make unrealistic deadlines and over-promise clients without regard to current available resources or workload. The upper management are extremely out of touch, and quite frankly unconcerned about the high turn-over rate. No employee has lasted longer than a year. Both domestic offices are primarily for managing and organizing assets to outsource work to the Shanghai office. Even the app development is outsourced to Argentina. All of the "Creative Leads" are on call at all hours of the night to interact with Shanghai to ensure the information was translated accurately. All of the positions in the US are customer relations, with no opportunities to design or be creative, but are ferociously advertised as such.

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Studio 216 Response
10y
Thank you for your review and feedback. We are always looking for ways to improve and like many companies are trying to address our challenges in healthy and constructive ways - many of which you mention above. We value our colleagues in our Shanghai office as peers and true team mates. All staff in Shanghai are full time Studio 216 employees with highly competitive compensation and benefits.
2.0
28 Jan 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The atmosphere at the office is very casual. The hours of the position are fairly flexible. The project pace is very fast, giving leads the opportunity to work with lots of different clients. A lot of responsibility is placed on the leads to deliver high quality work.

Cons

The flexible atmosphere turns into a chaotic environment often. Partners drop in and out of both the office and projects at random. There is little managerial structure or processes in place, making opportunities for growth within the company very limited and hard to achieve. Overall, the management style tends to be a "use you up mentality," burning employees out quickly and making long-term employment difficult. The partners oversell creative aspects of the position upon hiring, though the position is primarily managerial. When creative work/opportunities arise, creative is often micro-managed both by client and partners.

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Studio 216 Response
10y
Thank you for your review and feedback. We recognize our part in the miscommunications that have led some to feel their positions should be more creative and are addressing those issues - particularly during the hiring process by being more clear about job expectations. We are motivated to retain talented hardworking staff dedicated to the work and our clients and like all companies are working on ways to improve retention.
2.0
27 Jan 2016

They mean well..

Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Independence, lots of work to keep you busy. Project cycles are really short, so you get to work on a lot. Much of the production work is done overseas so staff in SF and Seattle just manage these processes. Very efficient system for producing rendering, though none of the skills to do so exist in SF or Seattle. Partners are very friendly and down-to-earth. Firm culture in SF and Seattle is very laid back and flexible.

Cons

No management structure. The partners drop in-and-out randomly. Everyone has to work on many projects each year, usually more than 25 projects. Though they emphasize "creativity" when hiring, the positions in SF and SEA are all management, even though we are called Creatives.

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Studio 216 Response
10y
Thank you for you thoughtful review and feedback. Our management and leadership structure is an area of improvement that we are trying to address. We recognize that project teams need good leadership and we are trying to improve team structures, clarify roles and better enable firm leadership to be more effective. I hope this response will encourage you to raise any of these issues at one of our Wednesday operations meetings... thanks!
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Glassdoor has 13 Studio 216 reviews submitted anonymously by Studio 216 employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Studio 216 is right for you.