Snap

There was a company top-up of stock when there was a large decrease in stock value. This was really great. However, this top-up was for future stock grants over the coming year, not the ones that folks were already given (of course meant as an incentive for employees to stay for at least a year).

• Stock vests on a monthly basis.

Interesting work. The problems that I work on are interesting and solutions to them have significant impact to the product inside of Snapchat that I work on.

Good manager and skip manager. Though this is of course team dependent. I feel that my manager has really done a lot to set their direct reports up for success and ensure that they're working on something valuable for the company. I'm not micromanaged.

Smart and kind employees. Have been here almost a year and haven't met anyone I thought was toxic.

Good development tools. I personally feel that...

Solid total compensation, between salary, RSUs, and an annual bonus. Benefits are great too. We'll see if they stay that way. Hopefully they do.

• Free snacks and drinks daily.
• Lunch served on Tuesdays and Thursdays.
• $60 meal card for food for the rest of the week at your discretion ($80 in Bay Area).
• Gym membership reimbursement ($150 / quarter).
• Cell phone reimbursement ($50 / month).

Decent work-life balance. On most days, I work 8 hours and can log off. Sometimes 10-hour days if there's urgency involved.

I recommend working here if you are able to be okay with the bullet points listed out in the Cons section. Regarding upper management (of any company), always remember that actions speak louder than words and to read the fine print.

Uncertain future for the company.

The company is taking massive hits as it loses market share to competitors (e.g., Instagram and TikTok) for ad revenue, even before the ad market started to dry up.

Return to Office will be enacted again for 4 days a week.

This applies even if you are the only person on your team in a particular location. There was a lot of pushback on this, but it was disregarded by upper management. There's been a large investment into leasing office space worldwide as part of this. Personally, there's more frustration around how this decision was made (it wasn't data-driven, at least not publicly) than what the decision was.

Quarterly "lightweight" performance reviews will be enacted starting in Q2 2023. Unfortunately, these no longer include self-reviews, but just peer reviews and your immediate manager's opinions. This makes it really important that you have a good relationship with your manager. Even my immediate manager doesn't like this.

Starting in Q2 2023, there will be a restructuring of compensation to cut employee costs. It's changing from a system where everyone is rewarded with bonuses to only the top performers (around the top 25% or so).

The executives dismiss opinions and input from others. It's incredibly demoralizing to hear rebuttals such as "there can be multiple truths," "morale is a choice," and "suspend your disbelief and skepticism about going back to work into an office."

Layoffs in August 2023 were demoralizing. With flat revenue, I wouldn't be surprised if there are more layoffs or other ways to cut headcount/costs.

Compensation is largely stock once you hit L4. With a volatile stock like Snapchat, this is definitely something to pay attention to. Make sure to take profits every once in a while.

To upper management: diversify your income streams so the company doesn't tumble when ad revenue dries up.

Cut spending on products that don't make enough money sooner rather than later (e.g., Pixie).