I have been working at Paradox Interactive full-time for more than 3 years

Cons

Paradox, and particularly PDS, have very low wages compared to other game devs/publishers in Stockholm (5-15k pm lower depending on position). This is extra annoying because when talking about salary management will stonewall you with "you are paid a competitive market salary" which is just an outright lie. Pay raises are only given out once a year. and since joining, despite constantly being told what a great job I am doing, only one of my raises has been above the rate of inflation (which also seems to be the case for most people I work with). Promotion rarely have anything to do with how good you are at your job, but whether or not you're friends with the right people and say the right things. As stated before, there is little mandatory overtime but there is also no overtime pay when overtime is ‘required’. People are regularly 'encouraged' to do non-mandatory overtime. With multiple cases of the management and/or producers (no one ever takes responsibility) working people into the ground. Burn out is common on certain, but not all, projects. Management/leadership is full of people who do not have the skills or knowledge base to do their jobs effectively. Like most workplaces, Paradox talks a lot about how flat the hierarchy is and how promotion is merit based. But in reality, many people have their jobs because they are friends, or former coworkers, with people in positions of power. Even if your manager is good at their job, they will be too toothless to change anything substantial when it comes to workload or working conditions. Paradox is incredibly anti-union. Which to be honest, normally I personally would not care about. However, this is Sweden - there are very few labour laws, no legally enforced minimum wage, and few legal requirements for working conditions. Support from a Union is the only thing that can protect you, and Paradox blocks them from protecting you. If you are offered a job at PDS QA, do not take it. The people of PDS QA are talented, friendly and hardworking. However, they are poorly treated and very badly paid, even when just compared to wages at PDS. They are overworked, with most doing the workload of two people. Their reports and quality verdicts are regularly ignored (ever wondered why most products launch with major issues? this is why). On top of all that, they are regularly disrespected, lied to and blamed for problems. When any of these issues are pointed out to anyone higher up, QA are told that actually all the problems are caused by their “attitude" or “toxicity". That covers all the professional problems I have working at Paradox. But I would also like to cover some of the more personal problems I have with Paradox as a company… There have been multiple reports of sexual misconduct at the company over the last two years. The ones that were reported have not been handled well at all. With many of them remaining in their positions or power/management over the individuals who reported them. Or even getting promoted “out of the way”. In late 2018 there was an employee that was going through a particularly rough time emotionally and mentally, and had taken time off accordingly. During one particularly bad evening, they publicly said a couple of incredibly stupid things. Paradox fired them for it a few days later. In my opinion this is Paradox firing someone for being mentally ill, and is an absolutely disgusting decision. In 2019, Paradox fired all of Publishing QA. We were saddened by the news but understood the decision. However, there was no public or internal announcement of this because management didn't deem it "necessary" to inform the company, or the public, that this had happened. I found out my co-workers had been fired over facebook, it's absurd. Over the next few weeks, they were pushed out the door as fast as possible and with minimum effort/expense. This led to a lot of confusion, for example product owners coming to the Studio QA to ask where the Publishing QA were, then being informed that they had all been fired weeks ago.