Software Engineer - Software Engineer Refinery29 Employee Review

5.0
Oct 1, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

* Engineering team is very forward thinking. * Utilizing up-to-date technologies on both the front and backend. * Culture encourages learning and enhancing engineers' skill sets. * Employees are very open and transparent. You're always encouraged to ask questions and learn any part of the stack. * Work from home policy is very relaxed. * Company is growing and FAST. * Summers have free iced coffee, kombutcha, and you have half days on Friday. * Lots of fun events with free food and drinks. * Everyone is open to suggestions and you can easily have an affect on the tech stack even as a junior employee. * Friday all-hands meetings provides useful department updates, presentations, and Q&A with upper management.

Cons

* Portion of the site runs off a legacy codebase of which they're constantly working to deprecate

Explore other reviews about Refinery29

5.0
May 27, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture, extremely nice employees, diverse workplace

Cons

Not very cutting edge with their approach to tech

4.0
Mar 23, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Refinery29 was training day, every day. The pace and creative expectations forced you to sharpen fast. I cut my teeth here over four years and came out a fundamentally better strategist. The work was culturally plugged in, the people were sharp, and you were trusted with real responsibility early. If you wanted to learn how brand, content, and audience intersect at speed, there was no better place.

Cons

The intensity that makes it a great training ground also means the environment runs hot. Not everyone thrives in that — and depending on your team, support structures varied. The company went through a lot of change during my time, which created some instability.

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