Pinterest

Good benefits for a startup. The product potential is there. Beautiful office space, free food. Founders seem to really care about diversity initiatives. People are generally very nice.

External managers who claim to be veterans are introduced by non-technical folks and have been acquired by the company. These engineering leaders often lack the technical expertise to gain respect from the workhorse class. These supposed leaders look great on paper, know the talk and political games very well after many years in industry. But they are often very out of touch with the data and technical issues to effectively deal with product problems.

Acquihires might be the only way Pinterest has been able to attract talent in recent quarters, but instead of scaling up productivity, these players are brewing a very toxic and disruptive environment. Plenty of management shuffle is also going on at the non-technical leadership level, and the future is very uncertain now. Given both the technical debt at the leadership level and the preference structure of product, design, and engineering, Pinterest might not be a very good place for developing engineering careers.

Finally, a simple cross-check on who was highlighted in external company videos and how many of them have departed the company is a clear indication of the organizational struggles the company has been through in the past 1-2 years.

Re-evaluate your acquihires and technical leaders, making quick and resolute changes before the environment worsens.

Reduce bureaucracy and levels of communication to achieve "Go." The core product vision is still very promising.

There might have been some organizational mistakes this past year that need to be fixed.

Focus on spreading growth as a top-line goal for all functions rather than as a separate, out-of-touch org in isolation.

Continue to take care of your employees regardless of their levels. Ultimately, your individual contributors are the force that determines how fast and how far we'll fly, not the bureaucrats.