Thoughtworks

2.0

Aug 4, 2020

User experience designer

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

TW overall is a good company but try to avoid design because of design leaders.

Cons

Company says they want to focus and grow the design so they decided to put two head of design for a team of 20 people? which doesn't make any sense. I have been working with them for quite a long time now and I can say both lack design skills and the leader mindset. All they can do is just one thing... "TALK". Both can't deliver. I doubt if they have ever done any end to end design delivery. Both head of design behave like mothers "do this, do that". They don't want to give autonomy to the team and want to control everything. Yup almost everything. e.g if both are busy the team gets messages like we can't make it today, let's cancel today's meet. We'll put something new" which never happens. Every team conversation is just about two buzz words, 'Value' and 'Impact' but the team always wonders what exactly does that mean? I bet just like the team they also don't know what both words are and they just use them to show off. It's quite common in the office to use buzz words. Both ladies have two faces. One for TW & SG leadership team and this face is very shiny, everything is going excellent, we are leaders and design is adding tremendous value, another one is with a team which is very dark and scary. There is literally zero team communication which happens because nobody has any interest. Why because both leaders fail to create that environment for the team which TW MD's and HR failed to see and understand.Team feels both are incapable and lousy design leaders. It's just no one wants to talk about this because all they care about is just doing the job and getting a salary. Everyone in the design team is on the verge of leaving TW because of these two. Maybe that's the reason people have started moving out of TW. There are other tons of points but i know nothing will happen because TW MD's will just talk to these two and both are smart enough to cover and brainwash MD's. It's just hopeless. They have decided to hire Sr and Lead designers instead of promoting internally. Why? Because both leaders fail to connect designers/team or mentor designers so that they can grow. All both care about is their 'own' growth and faking around. Question is who will save TW SG Design team?

Thoughtworks Response

Thank you for your feedback. We wanted to take some time to address some of the things you raised. One of our goals this year is to further grow and develop the design team. To do this, we chose to pair two design leads, who both have over 25 years of design/delivery experience combined, to focus on developing the team but also give them the opportunity to grow into a new leadership role. While we acknowledge that with any change there are always challenges, we also believe it is important to give ThoughtWorkers the chance to grow and expand their roles and skills. This comes at a risk for the organization but we believe it’s a risk that we have to take in order to give our people new opportunities. In line with our culture of open feedback, we hope every ThoughtWorker feels comfortable and safe to approach any leader, including MD’s, to share and discuss ways to improve. We would like to invite you to bring this conversation directly to the leadership team and to the design leads directly for the betterment of each ThoughtWorker and the organization. As we continue to grow at the current pace, it is even more critical for this kind of feedback to be shared so that we can continue to grow in the right direction, learn, and pivot quickly when needed. - Jessie Xia, Managing Director, ThoughtWorks Southeast Asia

Design team - a sinking ship - User Experience Designer Thoughtworks Employee Review

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