Struggling Company - Senior Software Engineer Pinterest Employee Review

2.0
Aug 2, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Attracts a lot of average product managers and strong designers applying for product-design centric company. However, we have a lot of trouble attracting and keeping seasoned engineers. We also tend to attract micro-managing engineering managers who like to run teams like sweat shops focusing on tactics rather than strategy.

Cons

I have been in this company for a little over two years. I have never witnessed so much office politics and power struggle as I have seen at Pinterest. There are plenty of smaller and larger places that are operated a lot more professionally than Pinterest. Trust is completely eroded throughout the chain of command. We have rotated through three different Heads of Engineering: one from Amazon, another from Shopkick, and another from Palantir. This seat is vacant again, held temporarily by our previous Head of Product/President. We are in the midst of another round of personnel shuffling. Many of our most experienced and earliest engineers have left the company. We have lost the war with Instagram or Snapchat, and Leadership is still busy figuring out what our product is really about and how to structure marketing, sales, engineering, product management, partner management.

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5.0
May 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work life balance, great office, smart colleagues

Cons

minimum meeting requirements can be tricky depending on your client book

1.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

WLB Remote work (which is slowly ending). Strong ICs

Cons

Poor leadership vision, strategy, and execution. Rebranding products that already exist as net new to chase a headline. Unclear career growth unless you are internally connected to “the right people”. Middle management that is there to boost their career / repackage IC ideas as their own with zero credit. RTO rollout was botched leading to senior sellers leaving. Lots of toxic positivity and virtue signaling

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