Hi, I’m in the process of interviewing for Niantic and had a few questions. Can anyone answer? 1. Does Niantic underpay non-technical roles given it’s a gaming company? How are the benefits? 2. What’s it like working there if you’re non-technical? 3. Are games aside from Pokemon Go taken seriously there? #pmm #niantic #interview #help #productmarketing
Benefits are lowish compared to other companies, health insurance, phone expense, wifi expense, fitness expense. Honestly Niantic even underpays many of its technical roles, the general vibe is that one is underpaid unless they’re in manager / lead positions. There are QA engineers here making in the 30~/hr range. Stock is given out for some hires, but we haven’t had an IPO yet so not super special yet. It can be good working in non tech roles depending on org / product, generally I see that the Pokémon GO non technical folks get overworked a lot. Marketing specifically is very overworked. I imagine it’s a better work life balance if one isn’t working on pogo. Keep in mind many of our games are in partnership with other companies, if another company holds the IP that generally makes work for non technical folks really complicated as they have to deal with approvals and negotiations with the IP holder. Games aside from pogo are taken very seriously here while in development, but if a project doesn’t become a hit it looks like we very quickly cut our losses and focus resources on future projects.
Can you elaborate on what you mean? Curious to know more about marketing’s leadership. Anyone in particular?
Don’t want to dox anyone. But in general, senior level managers in the mktg dept are way too inexperienced to even have their titles. Their direct reports are extremely unhappy because management does not know how to advocate for their success, so promotions are rare. I know several people in the mkt team who’ve been there for years and can’t get a promotion despite good performance reviews because their either told “there’s no business need”, “next round”, or senior level is hired in instead of promoting from within. Probably the most absurd one I heard was the ‘Director of Live Events’ mgr all of a sudden became ‘Director of Product Marketing’ with zero PM experience. Batshit insane.
Got it.. yeah that sounds rather unfortunate. Have you found most people leaving in marketing? I noticed there aren’t many people working in product marketing , and unsure if that’s due to attrition or on purpose
Many females leaving, especially this year. Yes, the PMM team is very small but managing because we only have three games out right now, so not as much time is needed for the unreleased products. Feel free to PM me for more details.
I have a friend who’s a PM there. Initially for Pokémon Go and later for Harry Potter. She hated it and after about 4 years now is on her way out. She wasn’t particularly technical, so my guess is that non-technical roles are acceptable.
Got it, thanks for the insight! 4 years is pretty long to stay if she hated it. Mind sharing any specific reasons why she hated it?
She stayed that long because she’s the kind of person who sticks to things for a while. So, 4 is actually short for her and she’s been meaning to leave it for at least the last 2. From what I heard, they make you function as everything (PM+PMM+ constantly deal with legal and sales and even more). So, you don’t get to focus on actually developing new products or at least advancing existing products, rather than literally every other job associated with the product - sales, customer service, legal limitations, design (which apparently was the only fun part). Can’t say more because that’s all I know.