Pinterest

Attracts a lot of average product managers and strong designers applying for product-design centric companies. However, we have a lot of trouble attracting and keeping seasoned engineers. We also tend to attract micromanaging engineering managers who like to run teams like sweatshops, focusing on tactics rather than strategy.

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, and partner management.

Look deeper into the current restructuring. Those who are desperately promoting themselves might be bad apples in the making, further fostering the toxic culture of the departed.