Working at Niantic

Apr 14, 2020 7 Comments

can people who have worked at Niantic that are currently working at 9 to share their experience and the work culture overall within the company?

How's the leadership, engineering org. and overall comp?
#niantic #ar #vr #career

7

comments

Want to comment? LOG IN or SIGN UP
  1. TOP
  2. RECENT
  3. OLD
 TOP 7 Comments
  • Niantic
    Yicd09

    Go to company page Niantic

    Yicd09
    I'm very happy with comp; Niantic generally makes strong offers relative to the rest of the industry. The company is stingy in a bunch of petty ways, like not reimbursing noise cancelling headphones when we were at the office, and some more significant ones, like not hiring the number of people we need to execute on our initiatives, but that doesn't change the fact that they pay well.

    One upside of being so conservative is that we have a lot of money in the bank to weather COVID. Extreme measures to preserve cash are unlikely in the near future, if the execs make rational judgments.

    Work culture varies by team but is generally quite relaxed and positive. The company spun out of Google and retained a lot of the Google culture, including not driving particularly hard towards deadlines or releases. This is both a good and a bad thing - good for work life balance and mental stability, bad for launching rapidly.

    Most engineers are talented and friendly, but upper management is poor - most of the people in power at the company were selected on the basis of their affiliation with John Hanke and not for their leadership competence, and it shows in the decision making and lack of transparency from the top. Some of the things we do are just weird, and the leadership not listening to people kind of came to a head and did damage to the company during the Harry Potter launch. So far I have yet to see anything disproving the idea that they had a single lucky game and aren't capable of bringing anything else to market, but that game rakes in so much that we've been able to paper over that fact.

    I'd say join if you're looking to learn some engineering, work with smart peers, and still have a life. You'll enjoy the experience. Just don't have too many expectations about the long term growth of the company. I don't think it's going to dramatically shrink, but I also don't see much more growth.

    Locations: SF is the mothership and has an awesome view of the Bay. In some ways it seems more of the work goes on in SVL, which isn't as nice looking an office but is very conveniently located in Sunnyvale's downtown area near a lot of shops and restaurants and right across from the Caltrain. Their Bellevue office is in a high rise building with a nice view of the mountains and also a convenient location. That office is more lightly staffed than the others. I can't say much about our Tokyo, London, or LA offices, but LA's conference rooms always look amazing in our videoconferences.

    Perks: we get the standard ones, plus a few extras. Good health insurance, life, 401(k) (don't believe there's much of a match), disability, etc. Free lunches from Zerocater (decent but don't expect it to be as good as Google/FB's food) and snacks always available; no breakfast or dinner. We get fitness, phone, and Internet reimbursements, as well 6 free mental health consults and free fertility services.
    Apr 16, 2020 5
    • Niantic
      poochie

      Go to company page Niantic

      poochie
      We have 25% 401k matching. It used to require you worked here a year, but now it's available to everyone, though I think they'll take it back if you leave before the year's over.
      Jun 3, 2020
    • New / Cust. Srv.
      cHeg28

      New Cust. Srv.

      PRE
      Google
       cHeg28
      Hi! Would you be open to providing a referral to Niantic?
      Nov 18, 2020
  • Amazon
    hwjfbiwb

    Go to company page Amazon

    hwjfbiwb
    +1 and if you can share location and perks if any
    Apr 15, 2020 0