Mediocre and political middle managers - Software Engineer X Employee Review

3.0
Nov 14, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great perks, mostly good engineers, some cool technologies to learn and work with. I joined Twitter several years ago, when there were a lot more opportunities than now, and was able to design and implement something new and cool enough, that made a significant impact.

Cons

I was a tech lead in my group and made many contributions to several projects. I got a second salary rise, the management once again told me how awesome my work is... and ten days later, I got laid off. After that, several engineers from the group wrote me privately that they are shocked by this decision, that my productivity and overall impact was exceptional, etc. Make your conclusions. I can confirm what others have already said: at some point the company started to bring in a lot of middle managers from outside who turned out to be not very competent at best and political at worst. As a result, I've seen, in particular, cases of groundless criticism of hard-working people and apparent favoritism towards some lazy ones. Engineers who did almost no work for months and were "in meetings" all the time, were nevertheless treated with respect, asked to write one useless design proposal after another, etc. Seeing all this, young and dynamic guys with a proven record of success would leave the group and eventually the company, while the management would happily hire twice more of new, less experienced and energetic people.

Explore other reviews about X

5.0
Jun 11, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

great community for web engineers. lots of mentorship available sessions to knowledge share really helped with growth

Cons

lots of projects do not make it to production lots of hoops before projects have a chance to be developed or make it hopefully to production

4.0
Jun 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Good salary - High Ownership - Interesting Work - Get to learn more broadly of how things work at scale compared to other global social media companies - Equity Growth Overall I have gotten to take on really interesting work here and am alongside colleagues I respect and appreciate. Equity has appreciated significantly.

Cons

- Constant Layoffs/poor attrition rates - Understaffed - Lack of organization/communication from leadership

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