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I have a T6 offer at Niantic (platform team). And I’m torn. I was excited about the role and its growth but then they announced to me that they hired a director to whom I will report to. I am less thrilled by that since I was told initially that I would come in and build that function. I got extremely disappointed and initially decided to drop it. Out of curiosity though I asked for the offer, and got it. It’s pretty good on the equity front, but a Over 50k base salary cut. Of course equity doesn’t mean anything yet. But it’s stock options at the moment. They also gave me a strict 1 week to make a decision. On the other hand, I have a pretty decent job at dropbox but I’m kinda bored and worried about the future of the company. I am also well advanced with other companies for interviews (startups) but I won’t be ready to have offers before Niantic deadline comes. 12 yoe | dbx | Niantic Base | 235 | 200 Bonus | 25% | 20% Sign on| | 40k EDIT: Niantic Options offer is: 45000 options at 11.77$ Anyone has advice on how to make such a decision? Happy to give more details in private also. If anyone is at Niantic, I’d appreciate some extra info 😊 #tech #offer
Not in engineering, but in general would say Niantic has really bad leadership problems. The buck stops with no one.
They had initially offered me an staff IC position to convert to Director shortly after. And when offer time came, they announced that they hired a director. To which I was like euh wtf?! And still am
This thread captures why, I think. Lots of people just get appointed to these posts seemingly at random or on the basis of working with JH in the past, instead of the company developing its people into leaders
As the reviews and as fellow niantic commented, terrible leadership. Head of AR recently left just after 3 months. Lots of talented females leaving too.
Despite the leadership problems, I think Niantic still has potential. It's current valuation is only 4B despite it makes 1B+ year revenue. They have a stockpile of cash. If it pops, it will pop in really big way because just looking at the revenues. Then the real problem is that the market looks at the growth primarily not the revenue. If niantic proves it grows from not Pokemon Go, it will drive the valuation out of the roof. Where does the growth come from? The company is putting a lot energy building a platform but honestly it's not really working. I doubt if that small vision team would ever compete the big players. The other area is the new games. They recently announced Pikmin and IMO it has a good potential. I've been playing and it's not re-skin of PGO. If it reaches say only 20% of the PGO users that will bring a significant momentum because it proves that Niantic games create a different market category. So probably later this year we'll see if it grows or PGO is the end game.
Well interesting enough, the role is to work on platform. But now, I asked for 3 extra days to respond and they said no coz they have a plan B... they’re being really aggressive with the offer needing to be accepted ASAP. The whole thing makes me uncomfortable at this point
If it makes uncomfortable, then probably not a good idea to jump the ship. Just one thing: even though Niantic has the management problem, it is one of the most ethnical companies. They care about their employees a lot. If you join and doesn't like the role, they will listen and try to fix it. They won't manage you out. If you are interested, you should ask talking to your hiring manager. I've worked at Niantic for 4 years. The other pattern I noticed is people who genuinely like Niantic games tend to stay longer. The people who care less about the product but more on the career advancement or pure technology often leave within 2 years (not that they are wrong, it's just observation). So one good test could be whether you like playing any Niantic games.
Lmao, that’s cause Nintendo knows how to makes games and have good company values and culture. Niantic is piggybacking on that- you really think Niantic would be where it’s at with ingress 😂 Smart move here would be let Tokyo studio take over the whole damn thing and forget trying to compete in ar and stick to a game partnership with Nintendo.
Agreed with Tokyo studio taking over. Nintendo is there help polishing but I think still JH/Tatsuo answered why question there. I don't think Nintendo themselves can produce that kind.
Can you guys tell me abit more about the Tokyo studio? I just got an offer from there. I’ve been reading negative reviews of the company in general but what does the Tokyo team look like?
Hello OP! Did you finally accept their offer? I am curious about the equity part - what is the estimated total value for 45000 options @ $11.77? What is the strike price. I am asking because I recently got an offer from them as well but they just offered me RSU not options for 17000 units and the recruiter has mentioned the share price is $11.77 as well. I am wondering how should I correctly calculate the value for the equity part. Thanks!
11.77 is fmv meaning you should pay that amount to exercise an option. The real valuation based on the latest fund round is higher (not too higher than 11.77. Between 2-3x than fmv. You can ask your recruiter) Your options worth: (real value of a share - 11.77) * 45000. If you gets RSUs, it’s worth (real value of a share) * 17000. However the tax implications change the value of options vs rsus in a big way.
How do you guys feel about the valuation of recent funding? It’s now at 9B probly doubled from previous round?
Can you add the RSUs into the details too? Otherwise it doesn't seem much of a difference that's worth going for something that you're not thrilled about.
Not sure how I missed this! I added it Niantic Options offer is: 45000 options (not RSU) at 11.77$ Which means depending on the valuation it can go up a lot. But it is hard to explain it seems. These aren’t RSU so it’s not that straightforward
I think the base can go up especially if you're in bay. Even for Seatlte, you can ask more. Niantic is generous on their annual bonus (likely > 25% for meeting the expectation). The option is not very exciting. I think it's around $700K worth based on the latest round. Maybe there's a room to go more if you nailed the interview.