Run away - Software Engineer Michaels Employee Review

1.0
Apr 3, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- The salary is pretty competitive

Cons

- Horrible WLB - They hired a bunch of engineers in China to take advantage of their 996 culture (working from 9 am to 9 pm 6 days a week) and cheap labor. This culture is taking over the technology department at Michaels. - Ridiculous deadlines with ambiguous requests. After each deadline upper management promised that the WLB would be better and processes would be put into place, but they were all lies. - No such thing as being on a team with a manager, product manager and a few engineers using Agile methodologies. You are just thrown at a project and told to code. - Upper management does not understand the importance of proper planning and architecting solutions before implementation. It is all about getting things done as quickly as possible so that upper management can look good and deliver on promises they made to demo the product. - Daily meetings to demo our work and progress to upper management and the CIO. The level of micro-management is insane. There were some weeks where we had to be on a zoom call all day while working so upper management could "see progress".

Explore other reviews about Michaels

5.0
Feb 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Had a really lovely recruiter w/ clear email communication back and forth. Process was a phone screen followed by an interview.

Cons

Interviewers were slightly late to the interview. Lots of technical questions, no leetcode style ones though.

2.0
Jun 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some great co-workers, employee discount, on site office benefits including a gym and cafe for breakfast/lunch, full suite of employee benefits at reasonable prices

Cons

Ridiculous amount of stress. Retail in general is often stressful but the amount of stress at Michaels is unnecessary and over the top. Constant last-minute changes by leadership to creative, promotions, products, and any other kind of changes. Things will be finalized and signed off on and delivered, and somebody will make a change at the last minute and things are constantly having to be redone. People are worn down and worn out. It’s the highest turnover rate of any place I’ve worked in retail at the corporate office. I’ve seen people take jobs and be gone within weeks. Leadership in some departments are extremely micromanaging and controlling even with employees that are tenured and have multiple years of experience. The stress level for both tenured and new employees is very high. Projects get discussed over and over and over again, decisions are made and then revisited again after decisions were made making delivery late and causing people to work unnecessarily in order to fix things that could’ve been done correctly the first time. The company tries really hard to make the workplace fun and offer activities, motivation, and incentives. Unfortunately they don’t offset what the environment is like working inside with some of the teams and expectations to actually deliver the work. Would not recommend.

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