Don't Believe the Positive Reviews - HR Encourages New Hires to Write Them - Anonymous employee LAIKA Employee Review

1.0
Jul 21, 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Seeing the sets of the animators were pretty cool, some benefits that weren't exactly unique from what I've seen elsewhere but you'll definitely need those massage benefits for all the stress you'll endure.

Cons

Don't believe these positive reviews. HR encourages new hires to write them when they are onboarded. CEO: Worked there a little over a year and saw Travis Knight about once during my entire tenure there. Even though he claims to be heavily involved in the studio projects. When a new portion of the dialogue studio was made for him he claimed it was big enough to "have a Turkish three-way" in there. Stay classy TK. Don't know why people look up to him here when he said he would always be involved with LAIKA and then the next day the entire company finds out he's working on Bumblebee through the tabloids. But hey I guess you can't worry about criticism when you're never in the studio. Culture: One of the most toxic work environments I've ever worked in. Extremely cliquey and morale was at an all time low. If you want a promotion make sure you carry around enough chapstick to kiss their butts. Even then, the lead media photographer has been working overtime for about three years now and was laughed out of the coordinators office after asking for a raise. Call-out culture is embraced here instead of having civil dialogue. Felt constant tension while working here including from my boss. Her method was to teach me something once and if I asked again she would berate me. Coworkers would simply stare at me if I asked for help. I believe my manager secretly told them to not help me if I asked for it. Since upper management is not held accountable here I was frequently the target of scapegoating by her. The company keeps labor cheap by hiring kids straight out of college to be on the RPQA team. If you are being brought on as a part of them don't expect to keep your job. Outlook: As bleak as it gets. Hence why they are switching to live action now. During my time there, I was getting paid a measly wage. Even though I was wearing the hats of 5 different departments. In interviews they will tell you maybe only about 25% of the duties that you're actually doing. I was overworked and underpaid. Don't take it from just me but from all the others that are saying the same thing. I was offered the chance to interview for another position here and I turned it down. They tried to entice me by offering me "overtime" to work so I could earn some extra money. Fat chance. One of the worst jobs I've ever had and unless they make some serious changes to how they operate it will continue to be the cancerous tumor in the animation industry. Ask others who were laid off before you decide to apply. I still have friends who work there and they tell me it's the same old crappy place. After I saw Coraline it used to be my dream to work here, but it ended up being a nightmare.

Explore other reviews about LAIKA

5.0
May 31, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great people made for a solid culture. Commitment to excellence. International co-workers. Barista coffee and subsided onsite catering. Seems to be always striving to be better. Huge gains in sustainability and studio culture.

Cons

Location from Portland is a challenge. On the plus side the commute is pretty straightforward with no traffic as such. Usually made it to work in 20-30 minutes from downtown Portland

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LAIKA Response
1mo
Thank you for sharing your insights and experience working at LAIKA! We’re happy to hear that you enjoyed your time working at the studio. As you noted, we are always striving to be better, and feedback from our employees is invaluable in making that a reality. If there is additional information you’d like to share, we encourage you to reach out to us at feedback@laika.com.
1.0
Mar 17, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Literally nothing. Met a few cool people here but at what cost.

Cons

Laika loves to protect abusive employees and managers for some reason despite receiving multiple reports about the same person and their abusive patterns over and over and over again. Feels like a white supremacist company as they like to make a big show of their "diverse" community without taking absolutely any action at all to practice this in daily work life and surely don't do anything about complaints regarding harm and discrimination. If you decide to work here for some reason (working retail is literally a healthier work environment) pray that you can just fly under the radar because should you have even a minutia of an issue while you are here and you speak out about it, HR and the higher ups will make you suffer as a consequence for you looking out for yourself and calling them out on their tyrannical management. HR is sickening. Saying that it's a joke is an understatement. It's pure evil. I am not exaggerating. In my time at Laika I went to HR multiple times alone, and with co-workers, just to reap the consequences of being pushed out of the company for speaking out because they would rather keep the abuser employed. The hate crimes caused by this company is not worth whatever art prestige you think you will get from this place which you also won't because it's an unorganized, chaotic, and the CEO/director doesn't even care or like anything that the employees work hard on. Do not work here.

4
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LAIKA Response
2mo
Thank you for taking the time to share your perspective. We are sorry to hear about your experience. We take concerns related to workplace conduct, discrimination, and retaliation very seriously, and these issues are not aligned with the environment we strive to maintain at LAIKA. We are committed to fostering a respectful and inclusive workplace and to reviewing concerns thoroughly when they are raised. We encourage anyone who has experienced or witnessed inappropriate behavior to report it through our established channels so it can be reviewed and addressed appropriately. Reports can be made confidentially, and we have policies in place to protect employees from retaliation. If you are open to sharing additional details, we encourage you to reach out to us at feedback@laika.com so we can better understand and appropriately follow up.
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