Substantial Reviews

- community involvement and giving back is sporadic, because... - leadership is full of people that are new to those responsibilities, this has been a consistent problem... - company is not always financially stable as a result - historically has struggled with sales - diversity initiatives when its convenient For individuals - no opportunity to grow professionally, flat structure doesn’t work - heavy restrictions on conference spending, most likely you’ll need to just pay out of pocket - benefits and pay are not competitive - no 401k marching, no bonuses - some employees can be difficult to work with, and lack of management experience makes resolving slow and painful

- Be aware of the job descriptions and the true expectation of the role they are interviewing for. What you hear in interviews will not be what you end up doing. - Roles & Responsibilities are misleading and do not accurately match expectations of senior/director roles within the technology industry. Not a place for true career growth if this is what you seek. You will be set up for failure if you leave this company and move onto larger organization. - To clients, they refer to themselves “Agile”. However digital maturity is lacking at this organization. As they do not believe in tracking things effectively and Senior leadership refers to delivery timelines as “Loosey Goosey” to avoid accountability in delivery. This ultimately costs the clients way more money and some tend to walk away after millions spent and with no launched product. Agile = Continuous delivery of features. - Accountability to clients is a major gap. Clients are mislead with the thought of Substantial being experts in their offerings… Maybe in research & some strategy. However, not in the digital product space. - Industry “Product Strategy” is not an all encompassing service provided at this organization. Substantial only focuses on UX and not “Business Value” driven product decisions. This impacts the effectiveness of product delivery as it ends up being more UX heavy vs being a true partner with clients who truly would need this guidance. When this gap is called out, you are met with responses of “this is the clients responsibility, not ours”. - Substantial claims to be open to change, however when recommendations are provided on a more efficient way of working you are presented with a roadblocks and the mentally of “That’s not the way we operate” culture. - Growth is based off from peer feedback and establishing friendships. Not true skill sets and industry standards for how you perform within your role. Peer feedback is one sided without the desire from Senior Leadership to obtain full contextual understanding of what the true foundational issue is. Sides are often chosen very quickly and this tends to negate any critical feedback that can truly promote a healthy career growth. “Quiet Firing” is an approach leadership takes at this organization in hopes you would resign on your own. - The idea of Manager/Director at Substantial seems pointless… About 50% or more roles at Substantial have this title and above. - Not recommended for clients who actually want to launch their digital platforms efficiently. IC on teams do not want to be held accountable to commitments and would rather protect their personal time and team culture vs being a great client partner. Clients often leave with less than they paid for.