Pros
The team I worked on was incredibly supportive, fun, and always willing to lend a helping hand. They genuinely care about each other and not getting to see these people every day was one of the hardest parts about leaving Orchestra. Special shout out to my manager who I honestly think tried, just wasn't given the ability to make a difference. The people I interacted with on other teams were insanely hard working and dedicated to getting their work done, regardless of how much time it took. Beyond the people, the snacks were great, parties were fun. Insurance is 100% covered by the employer and they recently implemented an HSA option to help with the deductible. If you like beer, you have a ton of exposure to the industry.
Cons
Orchestra made it incredibly difficult to maintain a healthy work-life boundary. After the departure of a coworker, I regularly had more work assigned to me than could be completed in a standard work week. I had to make the decision to spend crazy hours in order to deliver high quality of work while feeling resentful for letting work encroach on my personal life or deliver subpar support to clients feeling disappointed in myself that I wasn't providing the best I could. For 6 months, each new assignment came with a promise of a light at the end of the tunnel and a reassurance that they knew they were asking a lot of me, but the work just kept coming with no relief. Looking across other departments, it seemed many others were in a similar boat. The culture of "back in my day" is VERY strong. "When I was a consultant, I worked way more hours with way more clients" to brushoff feelings of being overwhelmed. "The last time we did this, it was way worse than this time" to rationalize poor planning. The list goes on and felt like the primary response to disavow the current reported state of team members. When leaving Orchestra, I was asked if I left because of the "culture." I guess you could say yes, but it's not the culture leadership would define. I left because the culture of the company felt like talking about our core values all the time, but doing nothing meaningful to actually back them up. Asking people to be authentic but dismissing their expressed feelings, quoting customer first but not allowing team members the room to put their best work forward. Continuous improvement but always looking to how things used to be as the guide for how things should be done now. Spending hours in all-employee mandatory meeting that had varying degrees of value based on the attending employee to talk about core values when work was stacking up at your desk. I was also asked if I would consider staying if I was in a different role. The answer was a hard no. Regardless of where I fell in the company nothing was set to change anytime soon about the way Orchestra runs operations. They pride themselves in cultivating untapped internal talent over hiring experienced people into leadership positions. While I can appreciate the opportunity this provides, if you don’t put the effort and attention into making those promoted successful, it can backfire massively. It also severely limits access to experienced mentors and diverse leadership to those looking to grow themselves professionally. You propagate same-thinking, stifle innovation and push people out who don't fit the standard mold of those you see get promoted. Working a million hours to pump out as much work as possible is what gets you a promotion at this company. I left because of my lack of confidence in leadership. And yes, the previous review calling out the "kool-aid" culture chose the perfect term. I'm really not surprised to see the opposite-spectrum reviews on this company. You are either a die-hard Orchestra employee drinking the "kool-aid", loving every minute of the 50+ hour work week, or you’re one of the other reviewers on this site. Bottom line, if asked if you should work at Orchestra my official answer is this: If this is your first real office job, looking to only stay somewhere for maybe a year, want to make your employer your life and/or are so jaded by previous jobs that you are willing to put up with anything - this job is great. If you care about professionalism, innovation, work-life boundaries and meaningful professional growth then you may want to look elsewhere.