Taro Logo

Declining culture, poor product and eng leadership

Staff Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at LinkedIn for 6 years
December 7, 2024
New York, New York
2.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

In-office perks are good.

Colleagues (ICs) are friendly to work with.

Cons

Honestly, really terrible upper management across product and engineering. Poor decision-making in launching new products: not waiting for data and constantly trying to go "all in" on shiny new projects that haven't proven themselves yet.

The consequence is constant churn of engineering resources, a build-up of tech debt, poor WLB, and no good product to show for all of it.

Additionally, upper leadership in engineering, instead of pushing back on product themselves and evaluating whether product initiatives make sense, shifts this accountability to ICs. This is inefficient and doesn't make sense at all. Also, as part of this, performance evals have gotten stricter. Despite the public stance of no quotas for PIP, there actually are quotas during calibration discussions. Most engineering teams are underwater and unhappy.

Advice to Management

For product leadership:

Dream big, but be smarter about failing fast and set reasonable expectations.

For engineering leadership (management specifically, not senior ICs):

Start taking more accountability and responsibility for decisions on what makes sense for product roadmaps. Stop shifting this to ICs to decide for you and blaming them for not "properly pushing back on product." This is a waste of time for ICs.

Also, stop lying publicly about performance review quotas.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
2.0
Culture and Values
1.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
3.0
Career Opportunities
2.0
Compensation and Benefits
3.0
Senior Management
1.0

Was this helpful?

LinkedIn Interview Experiences