Tech IndustryMar 30, 2022

Consolidated list of why I quit my job at Tiktok

https://www.cnbc.com/2021/05/06/tiktoks-toxic-culture-reviews-on-glassdoor-impact-hiring.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/quit-facebook-tiktok-biggest-differences-161138573.html?guccounter=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pkDXV2g_i7Y https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCXuGkHZvCI https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RNUrZFkHXlo https://medium.com/@melodychu/what-its-really-like-working-at-tiktok-part-1-956ec17e3371 Here are some reasons why working at Tiktok is toxic 1. Tiktok PIP culture (rumors are that there is 15% PIP or -M or lower rating) Tiktok has its own version of PIP and it is particularly worst as compared to Amazon or Meta or any other company because the culture in Tiktok systematically sets you up for failure and pushes you to work 9*9*6. Non-Chinese team members are especially vulnerable to negative rating because it is even harder to fit in if you are non-Chinese. 2. Leadership decisions Mostly all decisions are made or are guided by leaders in China and with little to no visibility into why. Product and Engineering orgs are led by management in China and have a high number of mid level managers based in China, which heavily influences the 9*9*6 culture in product and Engineering orgs 3. Expectations There is no clarity on leveling but the expectation is for you to work like a slave as much as you can. If you are dont then you are high up on the list for -M (which is below expectation performance). 4. Performance review We have one of the most extensive performance reviews but the same level of support is not offered to set leveling expectations or build a culture to set up employees for success. Twice in a row they gave us just a couple of days for a self performance review. This time our perf review started on Thursday and was due on Monday. More than half the people I know ended up working weekends for performance review because of lack of time from projects and meetings on Thursday and Friday. Our due date and time in the system was set based on some random time zone and no where in the system they specify what time zone it is causing people to miss deadlines and then there is no way to submit later. 5. No willingness to change top down People are just a number to them and even though few people realize this, there is no willingness to change from management in China. This also reflects that management in US dont have much authority. There have been several complaints, work culture review videos but there is no change at all internally. And it is all taken very casually, if one goes there will always be 5 other desperate candidates to hire is kind of management attitude. 6. Lack of diversity and inclusion There is a chance that a first generation Chinese person will survive fine because they can understand the culture, the accent, the tone, and even the suppressive management style, which might seem normal to them but is certainly not normal from any standard. There is some diversity at IC level, but it is not sufficiently diverse to represent the global perspective. At the manager level, non-Chinese diversity is close to nonexistent. The company even advertises its tech job postings as Mandarin language skill-set a plus. 7. Career growth We dont have a clear leveling expectation and we dont have a clear path for career growth either and there is lot of bias due to lack of diversity, some folks on team have advantage due to familiarity of culture/language 8. Culture - How people treat each other I dont know what is it about Tiktok but there is a lot of negativity around and people are always looking to point fingers. This is either perpetuated from the pressure put down by Chinese managers or just their style of working. All this then results in excluding non-chinese, making it feel like you dont belong there. 9. Hierarchy We dont have a team meeting culture and most meetings are addressed from one leader to many participants and is not standard compared to other American companies. 1:1 meetings and style of collaboration are almost looked down upon. And every conversation is turned into an escalation, including managers, skip, and leaders putting you on the spot every day and multiple times a day, creating a very stressful work environment. Even for a quick one minute chat, managers will push you to do it in big groups, promoting a very negative working experience. 10. Lack of processes While this is standard at most hyper growth startups, here is uniquely challenging due to cultural differences, language barrier and different working style between China and EU/USA. Combined this with pressure to continuously deliver, work 996 to be at par with team members in China or facing consequences with negative review and losing 25% bonus of base. 11. Personal sacrifice Working at Tiktok requires huge level of personal sacrifice from health to personal relations as you will end up having lot of meetings in the evening. The stress from work can also affect your relation and the quality of time you spend with family. Not being able to have a complete turned off stress free time due to constant Lark messages, constant pressure from managers and its impact of your self confidence. All these challenges put together, makes it an extremely hard working culture in Tiktok with no support or recognition and creates a very stressful environment. In the end, it is not worth it at all due to the toll it takes on your wellbeing and health #tiktok #bytedance