Zynga reviews

4.1

87% would recommend to a friend

(1,396 total reviews)
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Frank Gibeau

91% approve of CEO

82% positive business outlook

Zynga has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 1,396 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Zynga employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Media & Communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
2.0
Jun 23, 2012

Mafia culture. Great for 1%, Ugly for 99%

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Be your own CEO: is true for most parts. Anyone (Designer, Artist, PM, Engineer, QA, Community) can impact the game by innovative initiatives. You will get enough opportunities to test our your intuition, and hone your game skills. * Fast moving culture: You do 1 years worth of work in 1 quarter. Thus have big wins weekly, monthly. You commit many mistakes and learn a lot in a compressed period of time. * Meritocracy: In most parts. Very numbers driven company. At least, an year or two ago, the person moving the bigger number wins. Good while things were growing.

Cons

* Meritocracy: Meritocratic culture is dying. Politics and finding the right God Father can help you better than your real value addition. * Nepotism: Lop-sided promotions. You will see many inexperienced Directors, VPs from the old-timer's list. If you are not in the inner circle, you are wasting your time. * HR has too much power. Probably the most hated HR team in the world. One wonders whether they work to make employee's life better, or celebrate themselves and their chief everyday. Its ridiculous. * Sign up your life for Zynga: You are a bonded labor. Forget the weekends, forget your family. Terrible place for married people. You will find enough thrill at the work-place, but kiss your happiness good-bye. You shouldn't promise your husband a dinner date. You can't live up to it. * Open ended vacation policy is actually awful: It results people taking much less vacation than the 1 week per quarter promised. * Week Analysis: The PMs are numbers driven, but I don't respect most of them. Doesn't feel like they really understand numbers. * They don't care: Zynga doesn't care really. The Execs don't care. Everyone works for the bonus, and the stock (which is no longer valuable). If it is worth it for you, then take it. If you can get into the 1% inner circle, then do it. Else don't waste your time.

3.0
Nov 13, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good perks and benefits. Free lunch and dinner. 5 - 25% bonus and equity. Has a start uppy feel. To it.

Cons

Once a quarter we'll work a few weekends. The work is dull. The code is a mess and hard to work with due to rushed schedules. Too many junior developers making poor decisions. Management has questionable morals.

1.0
May 11, 2011

A very poor career experience

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pace (but see below); reach (millions of users - for now)

Cons

* No sense of company direction; Zynga cannot come up with a strategy to overcome the fact that it is entirely dependent on Facebook. * It is a loose collection of "studios" with little or no sharing of resources between them, resulting in serious inefficiency. * Disingenuousness is pervasive and seeps down all the way from the very top. * Zynga is not a meritocratic organization. Pettiness, paranoia, fear and back-stabbing win the day; those who "play the game" float to the top. * One of the company values is something called "Zynga Speed", which means accepting that quality will be sacrificed and long hours will be expected, over and over again. For employees aged over 25 this means your years of experience in your field will be routinely ignored; just to get the job done, you will be expected to abandon just about every principle you have learned as a skilled professional. * Deadlines are arbitrary and extremely aggressive, yet in some cases slip by several months as strategies change on a whim at the top level. * Expect to find yourself micromanaged by someone much less skilled than you, and who also has no skills in management. * A large proportion of the employees are in their first job and are treated like slaves; they will stay there until they burn out and discover a life outside Zynga. This is challenging for experienced people as the same is expected of them too. * Seasoned workers are open and vocal about their dissatisfaction with working there (read other Glassdoor reviews for confirmation). * The "no vacation policy" sounds good on the face of it, but basically it means your manager will decide not to let you take time off. * The games themselves are of dubious value. Do you want to believe in your company's products?

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