Vantaggi
First, let me say that if my marriage had deteriorated as quickly as did WillowTree, then that would have been the biggest disappointment of my life, but that happened in stages over years, whereas WillowTree's decline was compressed into about 8 months. I'll list some pros here, most of which are now out of date, although some still exist to some degree. When I began working at WillowTree several years ago, I was convinced I had, largely by chance, found my perfect spot! My fellow employees were almost invariably kind, helpful, very smart, and talented. Management seemed amazingly open and visionary, from the first day of onboarding I told everybody I had never come close to having such a helpful and comprehensive introduction to a company. To me, the best thing was that we were doing incredibly interesting work, and that there was always room for growth and new learning. Even aside from the in-office work, my colleagues were incredibly vibrant and interesting people - the tech support head who welded together a full scale, working trebuchet, any number of professional musicians, from a member of the Baltimore Symphony to a bass player who had been in most every band in C'ville since the '80s, just a fun and wonderful group.
Svantaggi
The pay level has always been a sore point at WillowTree. Part of the guiding vision of the company was that college towns such as C'ville or Durham could provide just as high quality talent as NYC, SF or Seattle, and the company could capitalize on the cost of living difference. Unfortunately, Charlottesville is considerably more expensive than they give it credit for, so earnings after rent or mortgage could be tight. But, frankly, it was worth it to me to be able to work for a company like WillowTree was at the time. Things started to come undone in 2022. Although it appeared that things were going great guns, lots of clients, etc., it became evident that management's time was more engaged in selling out the company for a big payout. This created a truly dual track company - one for the bulk of workers who had very meager option packages, and one for the those for whom the system had been rigged to provide them fat option packages. Once the merger became a done deal, it became clear that work at WillowTree was much more about squeezing clients for more fees than doing incredible work. Day to day, I was still very happy to show up and be with my wonderful colleagues on our projects, but I could definitely sense the pressures being dealt with by the managers. But I was assured by the many times the CEO had gone out of his way to stress all the hard negotiating they had done to make sure WillowTree would continue operating as it always had, with its open management, making every effort to avoid layoffs (as it did in 2020, in a move that really had earned lots of goodwill from me and many others). That was all shattered at about 4:45 pm on 23 May 2023, when we all received an e-mail letting us know that offices would be closed the next day, we should work from home and keep an eye on our e-mail. The next day 12% of the company was let go. The way it was handled was simply horrible, and went against everything I considered WillowTree to have stood for. I would advise anyone considering a position with WillowTree to stay as far away as possible from this dying company, and certainly do not put any faith in the numbers I'm sure it will continue publishing, showing off-the-charts employee satisfaction, customer satisfaction, etc. Those were earned by old WillowTree, a company that no longer exists, except as a matter of corporate law. New WillowTree (or Telus WillowTree) is a completely different thing altogether, and I would keep away. I have no doubt that most of my former colleagues who survived this round spent the following long holiday weekend updating their resumes.
