Pinterest reviews

3.6

60% would recommend to a friend

(992 total reviews)
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Bill Ready

49% approve of CEO

42% positive business outlook

Pinterest has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 992 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Pinterest employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

992 reviews
1.0
Feb 23, 2016

Magical Thinking

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

• Unique product with amazing global potential • Hidden financials make investors excited • Last great unicorn hope

Cons

The Pinterest house of cards includes: • Announcing (publicly) diversity hiring goals from the White House — by 3 white men. • Managing out true thought leaders, disruptors, & culture carriers which include several people of color, women, and people over 40. • Paying an ‘external diversity company’ with zero prior experience in recruiting or technology to educate company about ‘how to hire a diverse workforce’. • Discarding innovations around how to actually push process & get things done because of leaders feeling threatened by more competent and seasoned IC employees. • Focusing leadership energy on building up cases against those they should be guiding vs actually ‘leading’ them to evolve the product to the world [note: mostly white male managers of major teams including Eng, Design, Recruiting, HR, PM, PR] • Festering culture of distrust, cover-ups, and dishonesty. • Broken culture, broken product. Asked multiple times at company Q&As, CEO says increased discomfort of current employees is a problem of the individual, takes zero responsibility for sudden attrition & morale drop. Pinners might come first, but you’ll actually need a company of relatively satisfied people to build a product for them. Stop ignoring your people. Spend less time posing for magazine pictures & more time building a company and product around which people will want to be a part.

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Pinterest Response
10y
Thank you for sharing your perspective with us. We wanted to give some additional information about our Diversity goals/efforts. Last year, Pinterest was one of the first companies to publicly commit to specific hiring goals. To build a strategy for inclusion, this year we hired Candice Morgan as our Head of Diversity and have commitment from our entire leadership team to treat our diversity goals like any other business goal. We're trying a number of things to effect our diversity numbers and meet our goals including changing how we recruit. Pinterest has been increasing our University Recruiting efforts to include Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs). We've also launched an apprenticeship program to identify candidates from non-traditional backgrounds, and an early identification program for freshman students from underrepresented backgrounds. We also recognize that people need to see leaders who look like them to know that a career in the tech industry is a viable option for them. That’s why we’re committing to a stronger version of a Rooney Rule-type requirement that every interview for a leadership position include one female candidate and one candidate from an underrepresented minority group. We also have a partnership with Paradigm, a firm specializing in building diverse and inclusive workplaces. Together we work on Inclusion Labs, which are real time inclusive interventions we test using research methods. We have published blog posts on interventions around belonging, referrals, and university recruiting and will share what's working and where we can grow even stronger. We recognize that we aren't where we want to be in terms of Diversity but we're definitely working hard to change that. Thanks again for sharing your feedback.
5.0
Feb 22, 2016

Great place to work

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Startup culture of moving fast but having the resources to not have to overly optimize for the short term. There are only a handful of companies that can offer this and its a huge plus. - Small enough so that you can have quick meaningful impact on the product and the organization. No bureaucracy or unnecessary hierarchy (orgs are pretty flat). - Good balance between tech leads and managers on setting the strategy and roadmap. - Generally a performance driven culture - Founding CEO with a strong vision and purpose Having worked at other successful consumer web companies of different sizes I feel Pinterest offers a LOT and is one of the best places I have worked in (really smart coworkers who are motivated and committed).

Cons

Not entirely sure about the other overly negative (toxic!) reviews but that is clearly not the sentiment of the organization given the largely positive employee pulse scores. Like any company in hypergrowth there is churn and attrition (largely non regretted) and organizational reset. This is not only normal but healthy and indicative of the companies growth.

1.0
Feb 8, 2016

All that glitters.....

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- market rate/good compensation packages- including equity - broad work experience opportunities (at this stage) - potential for high impact in your work - market industry perks- nice offices, snacks, etc - employee networking is strong, many talented people - 7 year vested stock exercising option - access to quality networking opportunities with Eng events and product launches - positive press and impression in market - potential to be an amazing product - strong kool aid! - at will employment....

Cons

- people getting fired impulsively, unscrupulously, and/or over e-mail (in one instance, the firing of a couple people was sent to an entire alias, albeit mistakenly, but messy nonetheless) - I am temperamentally and emotionally ill-equipped to work in hostile and toxic workplaces - trust is a two way street and when a company lies to its employees it's hard to maintain that trust. Life is too short to have to watch your back inside the building. - lack of development interest from managers - complete opacity in decision making from leaders - cliques and mean girls/guys- competitive environment - when I tried to hire for diversity, I was told I needed to be "calibrated for what we are looking for"- which meant more of the same- and people the lead would "want to be friends with"-which meant those that thought the same and wouldn't question things - only company value practiced is "put pinners first"- go, be authentic, and knit were more like wishful guidelines - people being afraid to speak openly without consequence (rightfully so)

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Pinterest Response
10y
Thank you for your honest feedback. We read every review and share the feedback with our leadership team and use the information to make Pinterest a better place to work. In regards to employees leaving the company, we handle termination decisions with a lot of empathy for the individuals impacted. Our approach is to make sure people hear feedback on their performance early and often so that there is never a surprise.
Viewing 931 - 933 of 992 Reviews

Glassdoor has 1,277 Pinterest reviews submitted anonymously by Pinterest employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Pinterest is right for you.