Honest Review in a Sea of Fake/Forced Reviews - Anonymous employee Skillz Employee Review

1.0
May 6, 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Before I start my review, I just wanted to point out that the Glassdoor rating for this company was a 2.8 before Skillz forced 15-20 manager level employees to write positive reviews. They weren't even smart enough to have the reviews written on different days (look at all the positive reviews on 2/22/10). Since then, the company has been asking all employees to write reviews (they are more spaced out now). Now onto the actual pros: Coworkers - The best part of Skillz is the people. You will bond over complaining about Skillz Compensation - The compensation has increased recently to be more aligned with Market value. It's still not worth it

Cons

Where to even start with the cons. There's so many I don't even know where to begin Horrible work life balance - Depends on the team, but often times you will be shamed or feel pressured to work more hours. Certain teams such as Product, you can expect to work a minimum of 50-60 hour weeks Extremely immature & incompetent upper management - The CEO is a petulant child that is holding the company back. If you get on his bad side for whatever reason, do not expect to last at the company for long. Upper management does not take constructive criticism well. The CEO will only like you if you heavily agree with him and praise him. They want puppets, not people. The main product (SDK) is in dire need of a complete re-design, but the CEO is against this idea because it is "his product". Zero transparency - One day, you may walk in and find out that your coworkers have been fired. Not only that, but often times the direct managers are not notified or even told why their employee was fired. Gambling product masked as "eSports" company - There is no eSports part of this company. It is a gambling company that preys on and targets lower income individuals. Relatively young employees - Skillz for the most part has only had success hiring fresh grads/interns that have not been in the industry for long to know any better. Retention rate - Horrible retention rate, roughly around 1 year or less average. Horrible management culture - Majority of middle management has only had the horrible upper management to learn from, fostering a toxic culture of micromanagement, blame from management, and gaslighting Completely useless "Town Hall Meetings" - Town Hall meetings were created in order to ask upper management questions and to increase transparency. These meetings are completely useless. Essentially an hour of upper management rambling on and on, spouting fluff without actually answering the questions. Some important issues have come up during this Town Hall, which were brushed off and never brought up again (things like female employees being talked over and disregarded during meetings). I could keep going on but won't. Bottom line is: do yourself a favor and stay far away from this company. Look at some of the older REAL reviews, and see how negative they are. It isn't a coincidence.

Explore other reviews about Skillz

5.0
Jan 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Learning new tech stack and career growth opportunities

Cons

I dont have any cons to share

2.0
Mar 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Free lunch - Nice office - Great health insurance - Good hours

Cons

- All the negative comments about the CEO are true - HR acts like they want to help but provide no assistance - No raises or bonuses in 2 years and current employees will most likely never get one as Skillz can not meet its goals and raises/bonuses are based on meeting those company wide goals - No support for player advocacy / trust and safety until the situation is at its worst. Have heard a recruiter refer to the team as "children" so team is not respected by the company as a whole. - The company used to be remote, but they have heavily pushed and forced RTO. When I left, I said in my exit interview that I was leaving for a remote role and was told rudely by the HR BP "Wow, people are so spoiled from COVID and remote work.", which I felt was an unnecessary comment from a HR professional. - High turnover - Not taken seriously when providing advice on product launches and the potential fraud that will be seen until it balloons to a point that VIPs take notice and request refunds in mass or users cheat and manage to take thousands in profit due to faults in new product launches and updates. - No job growth

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