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

2.0
Mar 27, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people in general are amazing- smart, hard working, helpful, funny. Great communities in Slack and engaging events with creativity and camaraderie. Great remote-first environment and some decent benefits. The product drives inspiration and joy and it's useful in a plethora of ways. Longtime Pinner personally, and I loved how people would light up when I said where I worked.

Cons

The CEO and executive leadership team are sinking the product into oblivion. The app is completely overrun with ads now, making it an awful user experience. Leadership doesn't listen to employees when we've brought up major user pain points, and makes terrible financial decisions, focusing more on publicity than the actual product. The toxicity is trickling down. It's not the same company it once was and they've kicked out or scared off some of the most dedicated and passionate employees. It's genuinely sad to watch something so wonderful tank so hard.

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