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Sweetwater

It’s just a sales job, and it will eat up a lot of your time and energy. Work/life balance is pretty nonexistent, even though they tell you to make sure you have a good work/life balance. It’s nearly impossible to do so given that in addition to your work hours, you are required to attend meetings twice a week, sometimes at 7:30 in the morning before your 9am shift, meaning you’re working at least 43 hours per week. You start off with pretty good pay, until a few months in, when they lower your base pay which isn’t enough until you can consistently make good commission. They set you up so that you can make $40k on your first year, which in my opinion is not possible for everyone given the amount of people they hire, and is directly contradicted by another fact they’ve brought up several times, that your first and second year will be very difficult and often requires more of your time than you signed up for. Customers will often, and understandably, not want to be called, meaning you’ll be leaving a lot of the same voicemail over and over throughout the day, and when you express feeling burnout and exhaustion, they tell you to spice it up a bit in your voicemails because you didn’t come to work here to be a robot. The inherent nature of this job is to be a robot for a significant amount of the day until you manage to catch someone on the phone who’s willing to talk, at which point you’re just trying to make a sale so you can make the money you’re supposed to be making. While the benefits are great, and you will learn a lot during training, expectations are unrealistic, and you will barely have a life outside of Sweetwater.

I was thrilled when they hired me. It seemed like a dream come true. I was placed on the Spec-Ops team. However, they put me up to something I was totally unqualified to do. They told me they believed in me. They said things like "We've got your back! You can do this! If the ship goes down, we're stepping onto your boat and going down with you". But they set me up to fail. And they did NOT have my back. Maybe I oversold my skills. It was like they wanted to believe I could do more than their current developers. They gave me a Senior level role, but I never applied to such a role as I recall. I'm honored they gave me a shot, but in the end, the team didn't have the skill level to offer support. My questions were met with "I don't know". Also, team members were late getting me necessary data for project deadlines.  I felt totally abandoned by my supervisor, who seemed to 'check out'. I thought I would build simple CRUD apps like I've always done. Nope... instead they throw some crazy NSA-like project on me. I asked for help but they just seemed to kick my tires. There was also a lot of superficial social rituals amidst disingenuous badgering and ugly cubicle gossip. I'm sure there are amazing teams at Sweetwater, but I felt the team I landed in was a horrible fit. I don't want to ever go back. Never the less,  I'm honored to have learned so much! They didn't have to pick me. I'm glad they did, because it took my abilities to a whole new level.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Great culture and a highly ethical work environment. Super fun and you get to meet some amazing industry professionals and celebrities. High earning potential too, in sales especially. “You write your own check.”

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Sales Engineers spend long, repetitive days on the phone. Mandatory morning meetings at least twice or more a week. If you gif, scheduling dates can be challenging due to the Saturday rotation.  

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Amazing. It’s like a big family. Seriously. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
The hours are long and you are “on your game” all day everyday. You will be tired (in a good way). They provide a gym, on site doctor, an amazing coffee shop, salon and spa, and a first class diner. The food is FIRE. Even the mandatory early morning meetings can be a great time. One morning meeting, I was sitting 8 feet away from Kip Winger while he and his band demonstrated Bose speakers. A Winger concert at 7:30 am? And I’m getting paid for it!! Their annual Gear Fest is crazy fun; all SORTS of famous musicians and celebs show up for that. You get to meet them, and potentially, you could have celebrity customers like I did. It’s just such a great place to work, and Chuck Surack, owner, is a philanthropic LEGEND. He runs the entire thing with only one rule: “Do the right thing.”

Working here for a while the excitement dies down after you learned most things. Despite showing such a high effort and wanting to help out in other areas my raise review was met with meeting expectations across the board. This gave me a 25 cent raise. I do have the option to work other areas in the warehouse but all in all you end up sticking to the same repetitive tasks with nothing changing it up. I started out at 16 dollars. They are always paying attention to your rate. The job sets you up to not really want to try and gives you no opportunity to grow later on.

The negatives I felt working there were: Dead end job with no opportunities. Very mindless work which makes for long days. Very few windows which is more of a personal issue. I also do not feel the impact of my work. It sounds like things have been made more strict over the years. I know the main building is more comforting than the warehouse.

The positives of this place: They do have food served when you come in and on your breaks. Managers can be pretty chill. During slow days its possible to go home early. Plenty of people to interact with if you're social.

All in all its a job so if you need it it will do just fine for you.

Pros:
- Awesome co-workers, I made friends quickly and we bonded over music 
- Some of the customer stories are really interesting if they’ve toured in exciting places or are just passionate about creating music 

Cons:
- Inconsistent work schedule where some weekends you come in insanely early (6:30-7 am) for a big team meeting and stay until store close (around 7:30 pm)
- In the music store there’s set closing times but those are never followed, customers take priority so most nights customers take advantage and stay 30 minutes - hour past close
- Unless you’re really close with someone in management, it’s hard to find a way to move up to a different position in the company 
- No sick days, have to use PTO for it. Didn’t know of the policy until a few months in and I was very sick for a couple of weeks due to the inconsistent work schedule. My body couldn’t handle it 
- Being a female employee can be difficult, majority of employees are male and some of them (this is the select few but still) will remind you of your inferiority because you are a woman. Barely any female sales engineers and that was disheartening to see 

Typical day was working 1:30-10 with one 30 minute break, usually always busy but if not, expected to do other peoples jobs until you yourself got behind. Learned how to ship boxes, use a pallet truck, learned how to pick orders and put them in the right areas. Management never listened to us, upper management wanted things done their way and nothing else mattered. Employees values were nonexistent due to upper management thinking they knew what was best for their employees instead of listening to them. Culture was good due to the people you work around/with everyday, was a "family" atmosphere due to employees wanting to be around each other and finding friends. Hardest part was from 7-8:30 when UPS, FedEx, and the Postal Service would come for their final pickup and Data Entry had to make sure every shiped box would make it to the final truck before it pulled away. Most enjoyable part was the co-workers.

Sweetwater demands a lot from you. 80 calls a day, goals, meetings, a weird archaic sales system that funnels leads to all the same favored sales men. If you can play their game you can make a lot of money. You have to have the ability to sell and learn on the fly, they expect you to know everything about any musical product. Training is 13 weeks of absurdity. Culture is a lot of entitled wanna be rock stars with huge egos. You can make a nice living at sweetwater if you can handle all the bs is comes with.  There was not a good life work balance, easy to burn out. You end up helping other sales men’s customers a lot for free, guys who easily make 6 figures. The commission system in place is ludicrous and unfair. 

My experience at Sweetwater has been a challenging, yet rewarding time. Over the years I have learned a lot, grown in my role, and seen the company grow. With that growth can come typical company growing pains, and the need to make sure all departments are communicating. The culture here is strong, and my. hope is that it continues as we grow larger as a company. My advice to new people? Expect to work very hard and at a fast pace. Do not expect things to be handed to you, and understand that you may have to work harder than you have before. You may not be as much of an expert as you were at other companies just because of the talent that comes to work at Sweetwater. Learn from others, ask questions and be ready to jump in headfirst and prove yourself. 

Sweetwater Sound is a great place to work. My job consisted of assembling and disassembling office cubicles for the employees working in Sales. The job required at least eight people to make sure we finished before the deadline. Everyday, for eight hours, we had a goal to hit because we had about 2 weeks to a month to finish the project. The job was tiring and it took a toll on my body. Nevertheless, we've completed the task. Best job I've ever had.

heard about sweetwater for a long time from friends who worked there and said it was a good place with good managers. i started a few months ago and its all true. they treat you right with respect. talk to you like a human being and not a machine like some other places that only care about your numbers. glad im working here and not some other warehouse places in town like the really big one that arent as kind. tried that once and wont go back there. 

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