Pros
* Exposure to a wide variety of projects and clients across industries (sports, museums, healthcare, corporate, etc.), which provided valuable learning about experiential design, fabrication, and integrated tech implementations.
* Interactions with people from across the company were generally positive—many team members are motivated, collaborative, and genuinely trying to do good work.
* The software/development team is extremely junior but enthusiastic and hardworking; there's real effort and potential in individuals.
* Kansas City location is great—affordable living, good vibe, and the company contributes positively to the local creative/tech scene in some ways.
Cons
* The company is spread far too thin, dipping toes into too many areas (experience design, custom fabrication, signage, immersive tech, software, etc.) without committing fully or taking meaningful risks in any one direction. This leads to diluted focus and mediocre outcomes in competitive spaces.
* In software and product development specifically, there's a fundamental misunderstanding of how brutally competitive the industry is. DI approaches it like a traditional client-service agency—when the client says jump, everyone jumps, with little room for strategic vision, iteration, or building repeatable, scalable products. It's custom work dressed up as innovation, but the reality is reactive agency behavior.
* The software team, while eager, is very junior overall and lacks the depth/experience needed to compete in real software/product spaces. Leadership doesn't seem to grasp (or invest in) what it takes to build truly competitive tech.
* There's an inflated sense of self-worth and positioning as a cutting-edge "tech firm" when the core strength is (and should remain) high-end custom fabrication, signage, and basic tech integrations for physical experiences. Trying to punch above their weight in pure software/product dev feels mismatched and unsustainable.
* Project work often feels chaotic due to overextension—priorities shift based on whichever big client is loudest that quarter, not long-term strategy.
* Pay is WAY BELOW market value for software development.
