Pros
+ The people within Linchpin are extremely capable and always mean well. + Tight design work that is well fortified by tight development. + Flexible time-off when it’s taken + My compensation needs were met at every point + Felt like I did grow in my ability to design UI with more of a development perspective.
Cons
There are a number of issues with Linchpin that, unfortunately, end up outweighing the pros by a longshot. + Team culture is severely lacking, and any trace of it is because the teammates have worked together for 7+ years. Even then, somehow the team hardly ever meets up at all. It's unfortunate because, when together, the team can be really fun to be around. + Client/agency relationships have very few boundaries in place; allowing clients to dictate the process at times, request overly prescriptive revisions without little ability to pushback, and change "pushed" designs in various ways. + For an agency that values efficiency, numerous inefficiencies plague them (i.e. outdated processes, meetings constantly running overtime, bloated platforms…). As a designer, it's hard at times to come up with real design solutions when development is so embroiled with backlogged work, and you're left with block libraries that may or may not provide the solutions/workarounds you're envisioning. + On the flip side, Linchpin has a tendency to overcomplicate things—especially from a tech perspective—which ends up leading to a ton of issues within client or internal projects. In many cases, this has lead to moments of decision paralysis that would even derail most internal projects. + Real peer-to-peer collaboration is hardly existent. People have their projects and work on them in a mostly siloed fashion—even with larger projects that would typically require at least 2 people on most other teams. For creative professionals that thrive off of the traditional creative process, this is a true arrow to the knee. + There's no corporate vision that drives the team forward or unifies them, there's just the work that needs to get done.…That's it. Grind culture in the worst way. + For the unlimited PTO that's offered, it almost seems like people are afraid to take time off, let alone clock out for the day. Senior leadership would joke a lot about working into late hours, even on the weekends. + Employees are hired for specific skill sets or talents, yet don't get used for them. When an employee is hired for UX/UI design, and they're deluged with content entry and/or QA work, that's a waste of time and resources. + Slightly related to point #4, but there's little to no appreciation or recognition for good work. Work anniversaries are missed. Again, it's because there's only the cultural tunnel vision on the work. It also doesn't help when one of the brand values is literally, "You'll Never Be 'Good' Enough." + To that end, there's no real learning or growth opportunities here. While I can say I "grew" during my time here, the growth was pretty centered in WordPress alone. In most other ways, I found more growth in side projects I'd take on.