Electronic Arts reviews

3.8

74% would recommend to a friend

(3,994 total reviews)
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Andrew Wilson

64% approve of CEO

51% positive business outlook

Electronic Arts has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 3,994 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Electronic Arts employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Mídia e comunicação industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

4K reviews
1.0
Jul 3, 2017

Managerial disaster

Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

- Decent Salary - Easy job

Cons

Where to start.. First of all do not expect to be working in the video game industry. EA Galway is just another call center, you'll never get into any actual video game stuff. The studios are all working independently and EA Galway is seen by them as an outsourced call center. The communication between the studios and the support is non existant and you'll always be made aware of the different issues happening by the customers calling outraged. It can take up to a full day to receive an email stating an issue is ongoing on the game. If your dream is to work in the video game industry I'd advise you to look elsewhere, in an actual studio. The second point that had most of the people working there disgusted is the way the site is being managed by the area managers. Your team manager will most likely be powerless and unwilling to help you whatsoever. If you ever ask your direct manager for help you'll be redirected to someone else until someone is actually willing to give a hand. Most managers will be seen doing their FIFA Teams or just playing random games on their computers. The area managers are using people in probation to do extra stuff on top on their work because they know they won't say no. Promotion is also very doubtful. I've spent 2 years here and there are some things that catch your eye pretty fast. Often will you work hard for a position, have great stats, do extensive shadowing sessions only to see someone's girlfriend, brother or sister get the job out of the blue. When you ask for details on the promotion system you're just answered "She's had a better overall rating" but never ever will you be allowed to see how the rating is done. In less than a year I've seen 6 girlfriends being promoted, sometimes to jobs that were not officially open. There again I've tried to ask for information but I've always been shut down. Finally, I've seen several people being forced to pay thousands of dollars to be able to leave the company before the end of their first year as they were contractually entitled to stay at least that time. If someone is willing to pay such a crawy amount it should give you an idea of the atmosphere. It's sad to see that EA goes by the slogan "Make EA known for taking care of its players" when they do not care at all about their employees.

2.0
Jul 4, 2020
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

A big corporation with global footprint. It can teach you how things functions in an MNC world. Hosts a variety of teams and projects from small scale (less than 20 people) to large scale (over few hundred people). The experience variate based on the team you are part of, and ranges from from good to terrible depending on your peers. For an average person, it's a good place to gain experience to and move on, and that's how they have designed their culture - more temporary offerings. The job related stress can variate from role to role and team to team. If you know how to get your work done, no one will bother you. Depending on the role, the work life will be hard to balance. Also some days, you'll have nothing much to do, and other days, there will be unmanageable amount of work for you.

Cons

While some teams are highly functional and helpful (rare though), most are full of people with corporate mindset. A good grasp of office politics is needed for long term survival, otherwise no matter how hard you work for the company, you'll be just a name that will be forgotten. Mostly all of the teams prefer hiring by referral. Their work place is full of friends and family culture and you'll realize over the time that half of your team is somehow related to each other (lol). Sadly, this is very common phenomenon globally, as they say, it's more of who you know. Unless they are unable to find someone in their circle, the job posting is made public. If you are hired as an outsider, there will be hardly any help for you. I have figured that there's one way to validate if your experience will be a misery or pleasure: If you're handed in a bunch of external contact emails/phone numbers in your first rampup period, you are screwed, and if you're told to walk to a person seated locally. you'll probably be in good hands - if that person likes you. Only the people higher up in hierarchy can rate your performance, and yes, there's a performance file on your name (mostly unknown to you) Survival tips for new comers: - Make friends higher up in hierarchy. - Make sure your immediate manager and team leads are cool with you. - Smile more often (hard for SEs). - Despite the company's cultural tag line of "being bold", don't try anything bold unless you know what you are doing, and can tackle the outcomes. - Be prepared to deal with lower IQ people working as your seniors. There will be lots of them. You'll probably discover it very soon that these people still exist here because of their strong connections within the company, hence, don't mess with them, they'll silently kill your dreams; they have powers. - There will be a lot of new people on your team, and they will be mostly friendly, because they're in a same boat as you. They also make good friends. - If at any moment you get even a tiny sort of hint that you're finding it hard to fit in the team, start to look a new job asap, and don't wait for your contract to mature to do that. It's just easy to find a good job while you have one ongoing. - Just doing adequate work is not enough. It will work, but you will make yourself replaceable. Make sure you socialize with your team members. I know it can be hard, but the ones who do, they survive for the long run.

1.0
May 18, 2019

Toxic Culture

Anonymous employee
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

No real strategy so you basically can make up what you want to do on a daily basis. Great Benefits and Perks.

Cons

Leadership is paid well but refuse to make decisions and provide direction. Organizations are led by incompetent middle managers because senior management lives on consensus. Player first is a joke for a strategy. Everything this company does is against what it's players truly want, from game dev to customer support. The joke at EA is the 3 yr plan. Get promoted get vested and then get the heck out.

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