Pros
As I said in the headline, free lunches (really very good ones too), coffee and gym. Working on a highly visible brand with talented people.
Cons
Almost all that afore-mentioned talent is wasted. The CEO boasts of running an efficient company thanks to its lack of middle-management, but from what I saw during my time there this is a lie. The department sits idle the majority of the time, paralysed due to the CEO's lack of time, and refusal to delegate any decision-making to the department heads. Projects are worked on in a completely linear, unconnected way due to his intractability, and inability of department heads to use their own experience to push work through. Despite having 30+ staff in the department, there is nothing on the walls, no brainstorming sessions, not even magazines or books to look through for inspiration. Competitor research is banned, and ideas are meant to just appear out of thin air. No market research, metrics or measuring of campaign effectiveness is done. Results are graded purely on the CEO's gut. Anyone with talent is marginalised in favour of the "old guard", which means nothing modernises or changes with regard to working practices or efficiencies. I saw this company repeatedly fire (sorry, "make redundant") their most productive and liked staff members without any explanation, plan or even apparent realisation of how integral they were to both the actual work and the working environment. God, the way they let them go was appalling too - so little respect or even understanding of what a redundancy process requires. Public floggings of reputations after staff have left the buildings are common, alongside grandstand speeches from the CEO which display his clear lack of knowledge of the departments day-to-day reality. They have no HR department, so mistreatment and inappropriate actions by senior staff are commonplace. Complaints cause much consternation within the management 'cabal' but really go nowhere as they aren't empowered are trained on how to deal with them. Promotions are really on the whim of the old guard, who will build a human shield around them that they can blame for their own failings. I know this sounds like the rantings of an incredibly bitter former employee, but I've waited a long time to write this review to ensure it wasn't written in the heat of the moment. If you're an Industrial Designer, then you'll be on a good wicket at BMD - that department is well resourced, well run and well respected within the company and by the CEO. But if you're unfortunate enough to be in the Marketing department, you will be the company whipping boys. Worked to the bone during tradeshows and product launches, and left to languish the rest of the time.
