WillowTree Reviews

This agency has gone from an agile midsize consultancy that was building cool things and valued its people, to a bloated typical tech company that exists solely to provide profit to the shareholders of its massive soulless parent organization. Benefits and salaries no longer even middle of the curve. Management will blame the downturn on “economic headwinds” but the reality is, just like half of the rest of the tech industry, they had so much belief in their own intelligence and prescience that they thought the spending on digital transformation during the pandemic would last forever. They overhired during that time because, hey, companies have to grow always to be profitable right!? That’s an idea that has totally been proven throughout history. TD (or someone writing on his behalf) responds to each of these reviews with a bunch of buzzwords touting that generative AI, and our product offerings in this area, will save everything, but the truth is that leadership wasn’t even remotely aware of GenAI until it became public knowledge in January, and are jumping on a bandwagon with little to no knowledge of what they’re claiming to advise clients of. These are the equivalent of the people standing in the back of the crowd watching the wright brothers talking about how planes are the next big thing. Nobody cares what people who can’t write code think about AI.

I know this title seems harsh but it's exactly how it feels right now. I've been at this company for many years, long enough to remember how magical it felt when I first joined. It was so fun and exciting to work on projects when I first joined. When we went out to lunch no one ever complained about their jobs, instead everyone discussed ideas about how we could make our products/WillowTree better. It was so welcoming, inspirational, innovative, and I was constantly learning from people I really respected. Now it feels like we're essentially the arm of a much bigger and frankly stale and boring company (TELUS). It's actually very surprising how far down we've fallen compared to even 3 years ago. We used to talk about our core values all the time, which were developed by employees, now I rarely hear anything about them. We've also lost so many of our core team members that led teams in positive directions while hiring a ton of very unqualified people, which is creating a lot swirl with clients. I still believe we can salvage what made the old WT so great but it has to be addressed from the top down. Right now it feels like leadership thinks we're doing fine and hasn't really acknowledged the fact that most people aren't happy anymore.