Pros
The employees (beneath manager level) are extremely talented.
Convenient commute from the greater Harrisburg area, and hybrid work style.
Flexible work schedule to accommodate parents and appointments.
Cons
The majority of mid-level managers need some serious training on how to be a successful manager. Issues with managers vary by department but are felt company-wide. JPL likes to promote from within, which likely contributes to some of the issues with managers. Many mid-level managers do not have experience managing a team outside of JPL, or at all, and are first-time managers.
A majority JPL employees have been there 10 or 15+ years which has led to stale thinking and ways of working. There are other agencies in the Harrisburg area that are doing better work faster, and more cost-efficiently. JPL is not keeping up with the times in the work. JPL hit its prime maybe 5-10 years ago, but have plateaued, and some managers are not open to new ways of thinking from the new generation of employees coming in. Morale among lifers is also just low and doesn’t create a motivating environment for the new generation.
It’s known that there were layoffs about 2 years ago, but since then, JPL has continued to lose employees. There are no strong initiatives to increase retention. Pay is low, especially for employees on the creative side, and health insurance is terrible. PTO is okay if you negotiated during your interview, but they don’t provide many paid holidays. The perks such as the food trucks and taproom sound cool, but don’t make up for the lack in other benefits. Their only metric for employee satisfaction is the PA BPTW survey, which isn’t great.
They preach DEI but there is a sincere lack of authenticity behind the initiatives, and they love to tokenize the very few minority employees they do employ.
Depending on your department, you will likely work over 40 hours a week without overtime. Depending on your project/account manager, your life can either be stressful or highly stressful. It’s an agency so clients are always going to be unpredictable, but it comes down to your PM being able to handle it or not.