Pros: A fast-paced and innovative company. A good company name for your CV.

Cons: Low pay. Bad benefits. Zero work-life balance. Zero well-being. Zero meritocracies. Full of favoritism. Zero inclusion and diversity. They use their core values as crutches for their failures. They say they are a startup to justify failures, but forget that the company is already worth more than US$300 billion. It is a Chinese company, with Chinese culture, inserted into an environment dominated by American culture. So they try to be cool in a forced way (just because they need it), when in fact they want to treat you as if you were a robot. Leaders and managers are very unprepared for their position.

Pros: The company provided great benefits, such as gym reimbursement, home office reimbursement during COVID, team building budget, free lunches and snacks every day, Christmas and summer parties (except for this year), and travel tickets. Thanks to German law, it was also possible to call in sick without a doctor's note on the first day (though that is on the system, not the company). Last year, the annual leave days were raised to 30 vacation days. Some level of employee development structure was in place, although in practice it was a farce.

Cons: Micromanagement, tracking of people (which did not go through in Berlin), team leaders and managers without any background or people skills -- people who used to be regular employees and got promoted without any training or checks if they fit in with the team. Lack of focused business ideas. In 2024, TikTok laid off people globally in order to streamline business operations and introduce new projects. After the layoffs were over, said projects were never introduced, and plans were changed. "Fast paced environment" of a "start up" is a lie; this is nothing but a mess upon mess. Upon joining 3 years ago, I was told people move up quickly and that there were great chances for development and growth. Three years later, I was in the same position without any prospects for anything better or different, because there was no development happening in Berlin.

Pros: It's TikTok, which is great for my CV.

Cons: Underpaid, overworked, which is kind of expected.