Pros
Good pay and benefits right out of college, and a nice opportunity to learn about yourself and your professional goals/skills. I had a great experience working at UDA at first. Pretty much everyone, besides one or two people, is very pleasant to work with. Most everyone is more than willing to help you and contribute to the team equally, and team-building activities can be pretty fun!
Cons
I want to keep this review as unbiased as possible. I had seen Glassdoor reviews before I started working there, but there were very few that touched on the things that I experienced at UDA. After a jarring change in management due to unforeseen circumstances, cracks in the company’s structure began to show more than ever before. There is a tremendous lack of organization at UDA. There are middle managers in software development, but other than that…. no. All frontline employees report to the CEO and VP. Some senior employees can be seen as middle managers, but they aren’t officially, which just makes things confusing. Some roles like support and software development have been the backbone of the company for a while now, and I know these individuals’ experiences are likely much different than mine. First of all, there are never any deadlines whatsoever unless you create them yourself, which is a principle derived from the fact that the writing team has no middle management or clear goals and objectives. It’s run on wants and vague ideas rather than concrete reasons for “why” certain projects are run or any parameters to measure success. Data, metrics, market research — none of this is considered when making decisions within the team. It just does not set anyone in this team up for success. I felt so much stress daily — in and outside of work — just because I did not know where I stood ever with management. That being said, office politics are big here. They will not admit it, but there is an overwhelming amount of yes-men at this company. The very few that aren’t, seriously work so much harder than anyone I have ever met, and they will just keep quiet about any workplace issues. There’s no shame in that; it just goes to show that you either have to play office politics or seriously overperform to keep in good standing at UDA. If you want to work here just to get your bills paid, by all means — work here. If you are fresh out of college and really don’t know what you want to do professionally, this is a good opportunity to learn, because you will be asked to do many different types of tasks. Not my preferred work environment, but some people like that. It’s not a sustainable position because, due to the lack of structure or middle management, you really have no room to grow. There’s no chance to be promoted because there’s no role to be promoted to. Just understand that it is rare for employee ideas to be taken seriously, there is no HR department whatsoever, and there’s a lot of stress involved with working here. It was not just me— there are a lot of employees that feel the “at-will employer” concept. With no clear objectives and shady comments from senior employees, there’s a lot of uncertainty about whether you’ll have your job or not within a week. There is a reason they cannot keep employees for over a couple of years maximum, but they will continue to overlook the same issues that have been mentioned since the very beginning of these reviews. Plus, be very careful with what you say on company communication channels…