Avantages
Rise's benefits package is legitimately great. Ample PTO, if you can actually take it (most people I know at Rise have been required to work while on PTO at some point). Health coverage is *very* good. The benefits almost make up for salaries that lag well behind market. Aside from Account Management and Sales teams, the people working in the trenches are smart, good, hardworking folks. It's a real tragedy they aren't treated as such.
Inconvénients
Oh boy, where to begin. I'll start by saying that it's so terrible, there is literally an informal ex-Riser emotional support network. Rise leaves a mark on you, and it's not a good one. I'm an experienced, highly skilled professional with several years of experience in my field (technical, not marketing). Rise management treated me like an intern and set up a relationship with Account Management that made them treat me like an intern as well. Account Management regularly lies to people about deadlines and urgency in order to manipulate workflow to their advantage. This is not only accepted, but encouraged by Rise's culture. People who've been around for more than a couple of years react to the behavior with a shrug, saying, "That's just the Rise Way! You'll learn to tell when you're being lied to eventually." Buck-passing and backstabbing are the cultural norm. Doing quality work is a vice, not a virtue, at Rise. Those who are willing to play the social game a turn out a crappy product are rewarded as team players. Those who are unwilling to compromise their professional integrity by fabricating data or willingly turning out a subpar product are told they need to get on board with the Rise Way. I have heard more than one story about the President telling people "you need to grow up" upon being faced with an employee complaint. On one of these occasions, the complaint was, "My immediate supervisor berated and screamed at me in front of my colleagues." Unacceptable attitude from leadership. Middle management is too weak, non-confrontational, and/or disempowered to fight on behalf of their employees. Most managers are inexperienced, promoted up to management positions before being ready as a retention move in light of a very heavy recent wave of departures. In the Innovation team (which is a really strange name for a team that avoids innovating at all costs), there are 2.7 managers per employee, leading to a culture of extreme wasteful micromanagement. Project timelines are dictated by account managers and sales teams who have unreasonable expectations for how long things take. I was asked on multiple occasions to turn work around in 3 days that should have taken 6 weeks. Despite the fact that this is a regular occurrence, leadership explicitly refuses to implement measures to more appropriately scope out work before promises are made. Employees are regularly asked to do things that I personally consider dishonest. Example: "Leave positive reviews for client X on this website." "Rise has had some bad glassdoor reviews recently. We need you to go leave a positive review to offset it." "I can't give my client that number. Can't you just make up a different one?" The office environment is as noisy as a busy restaurant on a Friday night. It's impossible to think, much less work. There are rows and rows of identical cafeteria tables that people are crammed into like cattle. Being seen at your desk early in the day and late in the evening is more heavily rewarded than doing good work. I didn't do this, but I know of more than one person whose entire job strategy was to be seen at their desk while actually doing no work.