IDEO Reviews

Your Managing Director makes all the difference in what kind of IDEO experience you have. If you’re assigned to the wrong leadership or the wrong project, it’s an uphill battle. This can be location-specific as well due to decentralization to a fault. Any internal movement or promotion happens through mastering the decades-old, social network. Most of the Glassdoor reviews here accurately speak to this politically-charged culture. There is a new female CEO so it remains to be seen if this will change. After a three month “listening tour”, however, little seems different on the IDEO agenda. After-all, change at IDEO is typically glacial and always conflict-averse. IDEO’ers often joke that the company needs to “IDEO itself” - the organization, however, is not good at having its own hard conversations. Because of this, it’s my opinion that women at IDEO suffer due to a “boys club” culture that still exists. It seems as if, even top performing women (those who’ve given years, if not, decades to the organization) have a much harder time getting to partner, receiving credit where credit is due on projects, being published, earning the same or more, etc. For those who are working mothers, I believe this disparity is even further exacerbated. If you are young, childless and have endless hours to give to work - IDEO will gladly take 10-15 years of your life. If you are old(er), raising a family, and have outside experience to know your boundaries on how much work (and bad management) should impose - I’d strongly suggest doing your due diligence on which team you’re joining.

– Echoing much of what has been said, there is a reason why it's either people have either been at IDEO 10+ years, or are a bunch of newbies. Partners tend to create this cult like environment, where if you aren't a good-old boy, you will be faced with a long, slow uphill battle in your career journey, which can really squeeze you mid-career. – You are generally not promoted until you have been doing that job for 2+ years. It's not built on a foundation or trust or stretch people through new experiences, but rather, forcing people to fight for every singe promotion, especially at the team level. – Those that are promoted into leadership positions, are often ill-equipped and lack the people skills to support people in an empathetic way (which is ironic, because it's IDEO, which wrote the book on being human centered). – And honestly, some of the partners have been drinking the IDEO kool-aid for too long. Some (not all) can be full of themselves, and in some cases, just plain pretentious and mean, without reflecting on their actions. – They will often size you up at the as you become a Senior Project Lead. If you don't seem like a IDEO-lifer to them, it could cost you a promotion. Countless people have left at this level because they weren't given the chance to transition to Director. They pick favorites. Period. – While I wasn't a part of the newly formed Education Studio in San Francisco, it seemed toxic to me. I heard from countless employees that the leadership team worked people too hard, and managed in a very top down way, rather than meeting them where they are. That team is almost entirely new people now. – Last but not least, nobody says what they really mean. This is by far, the most passive aggressive culture I worked in. Feedback is always masked in generalizations and provides little to no insight about how decisions about your career get made.