Pros
==The People== Designworks hires some bright people. You’ll work with former rocket engineers, architects and other serious engineering and design-thinking heavyweights. ==The Projects== Not all projects are sexy, but a lot of them are. You’ll get to leave a fingerprint on the future of product and industrial design. Your work will matter here. ==Stability== For those that are full BMW employees, there is lots of job stability. There are many people here that have been at Designworks for 10+ years. =Benefits= The BMW group benefits are pretty decent. The corporate lease program is excellent. Easily one of the best benefits at the company and worth one Glassdoor star on its own. =Location (if you live in valley)= Designworks likes to say they’re in LA, but they’re actually in Newbury Park. If you have a family and don’t mind living outside of the trendy part of LA, then this is a huge benefit. You can have a nice house in Camarillo and still have a 20 minute commute instead of 2 hours into LA. =Execs are approachable= The executives are involved and approachable. Not everyone agrees with how execs do things but you can always talk to them. This is a criminally underrated quality.
Cons
==Location (if you live in LA)== As I said, Designworks likes to say they’re in LA. They’re actually in Newbury Park. Newbury Park isn’t cool or trendy and it’s far from everything. If you live in LA, this is a nightmare commute. ==Culture is 20 years behind== For as good as they are at design, Designworks is weak when it comes to corporate culture. Draconian IT restrictions prevent you from using third-party communication and management tools that have become industry standard. So if you come here from a hip, agile company that likes new tools that make things efficient, you’re gonna have a very bad time. There is no strong culture of operational innovation. There is either no desire to use new tools or there isn’t any budget to buy them. They make “the most” of the archaic system they have in place. Some execs are old school and don’t really “get” the new trendy corporate perks like work from home, so when you ask to work remotely you’re not always going to be met with smiles. This place is more “the office” than “Silicon Valley” so don’t expect cool start-up level culture perks or even autonomy if that’s your thing. The old joke is “you’ll need three signatures to get an ink pen”. One review described the culture as lifeless and corporate. I’d say that’s accurate. ==Poor communication== Older reviews complain of communication issues and this is still absolutely true. This a problem with whole agency from top to bottom and it’s mind boggling. Information doesn’t flow cleanly from one party to another. Processes aren’t clear. Meetings are held but key people are left off invites. Project level decisions get made but aren’t told to everyone on the project. It’s miracle anything gets done.