Thoughts on Activision/Blizzard as an ex-employee
I feel like I am giving my opinion on Blizzard a lot. I'm just going to post my negative tale of woe here in a post. Skip to the bottom for a short summary so you don't read a long winded post from a bitter ex-employee. I want to just point folks to this post in the future. Team: Bnet and Web & Mobile. Worked with Irvine & Austin teams (we were on the same team) I loved Blz when I first joined. But then after a reorg I found myself on a different team and had the worst experience. I felt like it was discrimination but I cant be sure (I'm a minority but hesitant to pull the race card). But I was written up for stuff that my teammates also did (like, I didnt get my Yubikey to enable WFH pre-covid in a timely manner but it was outside my control due to IT). I got wrote up for petty stuff and got put on PIP. Climbed out and still was fired. Mind you- I got all my sprint tasks done and my PM loved me and fought for me. It made no difference- was still kicked to the curb Was only making like 120k back then as a senior programmer (maybe almost 140k TC). More than doubled my salary after I was eventually fired. That place paid really bad. And forget bout FAANG- I also got offered double by other Big tech companies besides my current one. Avg big tech company should double Blizzard pay. Why did I stay there you ask? Ignorance. Had no idea how much big tech companies paid But I know people that liked it there but think they all left by now due to getting much better offers elsewhere. Checkout levels.fyi Blizzard pays low and their Blind rating is lowest I've personally seen. People love to harp on Amazon but it pays way better than Blz & had a much higher Blind rating when I last checked. Now to be fair- I dont think Blz "hires to fire" but definitely will PIP / fire you just to meet their annual targets while Bobby Kotick rakes in all that salary on record breaking yrs. I didnt know this but they consult with all of your peers for performance reviews. So you gotta kiss everyone's ass- not just your mngr. I suppose peer reviews are common at a lot of places. Just be careful- if you land on a good team just stay there while you quietly look for a higher paying job (under no circumstance should you switch teams unless you know 100% new team are all for you in your gut!!!). My friend recently left Blz and they are doubling their TC too. Not trying to sound like a money hungry TC chaser but Blizzard straight up pays below market as evidenced by levels.fyi TL;DR -- 1) Stay on the team that hired you unless you know 100% the other team is not against you. And I mean the entire team. Cause just one dislike and I MEAN just one bad peer review will get you PIP'ed (if you had bad manager like myself at least). I had high ratings before I was put on that other team and it made no difference. Was put on PIP 2) Check levels.fyi and Blind rating. Blz is one of the lowest rated companies. Heavily consider any other competing offer. But you can have fun there on the right team. You'll just be underpaid UPDATE: Have been contacted by a few Activision recruiters and was informed the salary range is 136k-218k. Not sure which "levels" that is (Senior-Principal?). Maybe this can help some of you in your negotiation TC: 280k #blizzard
Levels.fyi
What TC did you ask for? Low 200s are possible for a senior 1 (in Irvine, no clue about Austin).
I can confirm this is true. An activision recruiter reached out too me saying they have 100% remote position that is paying a salary range of 136k-218k. Not sure which level that is (Senior - Principal?). I told them I wasn't interested ofc I'll make a note of this in the OP. Back in those days I used to get lowballed so bad. I will take some responsibility on that.
WM strived to be better each day with leaders focused on fairness, support. Not perf CT but they tried. Blizzard had much potential, but you have to do you.
Written up for Yubikey issues? Most of my managers in W&M were really reasonable people that I enjoyed working with. I'm sorry that was your experience 😔 In general W&M was superior in terms of embodying Blizzard's desired culture than bnet. The pay is definitely subpar; they used to rely on the Blizzard name to get away with it. That doesn't hold much water anymore. I'm in agreement: SWE, design, and PM should avoid Blizzard, especially Battlenet.
Yep I couldn't believe it. It was brought up in my performance review right before I was sent to PIP. It's like they had to dig deep for dirt. Granted, it's just one man's take though. I think a few of my friends did like it there; they were just underpaid.