Nerd Corps Entertainment Reviews

Pros

great people to work with. It was an amazing experience to learn about animation. Cool shows to participate in. Lots of chance to have upward mobility.

Cons

no benefits at all. Only upper management who got paid more had it...barely minimum wage. sexist hiring process.

Pros

Great place to work as a director

Cons

The Spaarcx system was not ideal

Pros

- friendly people - employee appreciation events

Cons

- quick fast animation, never get time to be proud of your work - basic rigs - sparks -very poor pay for the cost of living its so absurd you cant make 30-50 and hope to have a savings in this city. -cap on how much one can make they all follow same wage system which is the lowest -

Pros

Got to work on some cool projects with some great people. Enjoyed stable employment for many years. Received raises and promotions in a timely manner. Excellent employee benefits package. Work environment was pretty casual.

Cons

Nerd Corps was a company with exceptional employment stability. Since being acquired by DHX Media, things started to change a bit. I watched a handful of employees let go, some of which I did not expect. The shot tracking system was very good in most aspects, but the fact that it had a built in timer that would tell employees how far behind they were was quite stressful and did not always accurately reflect the work that was being done. The result was people feeling guilty and/or rebellious all the time and in the end would single people out as opposed to a more team based approach to the work. They are switching to Shotgun tracking system, so things may be a bit better once that is underway. In terms of promotions, I felt that I was promoted at the appropriate times although I witnessed other employees that seemed to be disappointed at how slow people were promoted. However, the more senior positions and supervisory positions were often filled with employees that probably did not have enough experience yet. I applaud the fact that Nerd Corps wanted to promote from within, but sometimes it is more important to have someone with experience fill those roles to provide the necessary leadership to be efficiently successful. While DHX is more open to this concept I don't want them to forget about their current employees; if someone is really good at what they do and deserve to be promoted to a leadership role, they should definitely be considered before an outside hire. Nerd Corps was very slow in switching to industry standard software. Many people were trained in a Maya/NUKE workflow, but we were using Softimage XSI for everything. I was fine with using Softimage at the time because I had gotten to know it quite well, but now that I am looking for new employment I feel a little behind the times. There was a continuing education program for employees that was getting set up, but seems to have gotten cancelled. I was pretty excited about this as there was going to be classes that we could attend to further develop our skills. Hopefully they can bring this project back at some point for the benefit of their employees (and for the benefit of the company). There was no designated lunch room for employees to gather. Lots of people would just end up sitting at their desk through lunch, myself included. Hopefully the new DHX studio will have better facilities for the employees. Note about my rating for the company: For the majority of the time I was employed at Nerd Corps I would have given 4 out of 5, but lowered it to a 3 by the time I left. I have hopes that within the next few years DHX will have made some changes that benefit the employees' happiness and well being.

Pros

Cool projects. It's a good first job to get into the industry. You'll learn a lot.

Cons

It seems like the company is going through some growing pains. The quotas are high and it's kind of a sweat shop

Pros

Newly introduced benefits are better than you will find at most places in the animation industry. The people were great. The directors were patient. A great place to find your footing in the industry.

Cons

Low wages. Probably the lowest in the industry. The work load was too much. Animation quality was lacking. A tracking system was used that overloaded it's employees telling them they were cronically behind. Felt like a career at a factory rather than a dream job.