Prós
- I loved the people I worked with at Rising Tide. Many of them have gone on to become some of my closest friends and colleagues. - The team is talented, hardworking, and scrappy. You learn a lot, and they tend to trust you with a lot of responsibility early. - They've come a long way in terms of improving the work culture and becoming more transparent about compensation. - Even when I was part of junior staff, I felt my concerns were taken into consideration. I never feared any kind of retaliation from the majority of the partners for making my opinion known -- even if it was critical of a leadership decision.
Contras
- Unlimited vacation is kind of a lie. I would often feel pressure to be "on" all the time. - Much of the staff comes from campaigns, so you definitely adapt to a campaign lifestyle. This means being online when you're taking a sick day unless you're really sick and feeling a bit guilty -- like you're letting your team down. This also means never being far from your phone, hotspot, or coding emails at bars/in cabs when other people are offline. Obviously politics isn't a 9-to-5 gig, but respecting sick days and enforcing time off would've gone a long way to preventing staff burnout. - Salaries were low relative to the amount of hours we worked, and I didn't feel there was opportunity for upward mobility beyond my position at the time I left. They were also initially hesitant to have any kind of salary transparency. - At the time I worked at RTI, it was a very white organization from the top down. This has since improved, but there's more work to be done.