Be very very careful - Engineer Snap Employee Review

1.0
Nov 7, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Stock and compensation. Free food. Benefits aren't bad for a start up. Being in Venice beach is nice.

Cons

Work life balance is hands down the worst I have ever experienced in my entire career. I have overheard management indicating that it's okay to ride employees very hard because "nobody in their right mind would leave the equity on the table." Very toxic culture. Expect 60+ hours a week and the majority of weekend and company holidays to be mandatory. Even if you are doing 60 hours a week, expect to get dirty looks because of the Amazon-on-steroids workaholic culture that is imposed from the top down. I cannot stress enough how bad the work life balance is. If you are considering an offer, you should consider it a trade for 4 years of feeling horrible. Management is incredibly inexperienced, out of touch, and has no grasp on reality. Decisions at the top level are completely arbitrary and leadership regularly ignores the advice of their subordinates. Management will send out mails after a mandatory weekend telling employees how it was "so cool" and "felt like a startup again." You will absolutely have your skills squandered and ideas suppressed. As the company nears IPO, people are focused on empire building and keeping high quality talent suppressed. This leads to a ton of C-list talent being hired, which is very frustrating. It's very typical for only a narrow segment of your skills to be utilized and attempting to change that will incur a heavy penalty.

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5.0
Jun 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great working culture and mission of work

Cons

I don’t have any cons

2.0
May 17, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great base comp - Unlimited PTO - Good food at offices

Cons

- Leadership is incompetent. This company will die and when it does, it will be no one's fault other than Evan. - If you disagree with leadership and speak up, you will be punished. All SMC VPs hired each other from past companies. They are all corporate ladder climbers from Meta with no morals. - Being a leader at Snap means leading through fear and regularly throwing tantrums in conference rooms. - The ads business is a joke. No matter how many ex-[insert big tech name] engineers work on the product, you can't monetize an audience of 13 year olds or people who's sole use case for this app is inappropriate. - There is truly nothing redeeming about this business, B2C or B2B. It's all smoke and mirrors. I've never seen the population of monetizable users grow, it's only gone down since I've joined. To offset this we acquire the cheapest users possible to appease investors who see straight through this BS.

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