Great benefits don’t outweigh toxic culture - Anonymous employee Criteo Employee Review

2.0
May 9, 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great benefits for US employees. General culture of respect for time off (due to it being a French Company). Really interesting and valuable experience working at a truly international company.

Cons

Frenetic energy of a start up + lack of transparency, tons of red-tape and endless politicking = exhausting environment where very little meaningful work gets done. I honestly lost count of the number of times I was asked to do something not-strategic and/or frankly non-sensical for “optics”. This environment where politicking and infighting reigns supreme there is so much wasted talent and even perhaps worse - I’ve seen multiple humble and eager employees slowly fade to resigned, jaded and gossipy. The lack of leadership and autonomy for execution really wore down a lot of people. Also workplace bullies have been consistently promoted so long as they are well connected. I don’t think that this is consistent across the entire organization but there are large pockets where this is true. My advice to anyone considering working for Criteo - be really thorough with interviewing potential managers and peers and if you have any red flags - honor them they are most likely valid and picking up on a toxic situation. That said, if you don’t have any red flags and your potential team seem well rested happy and productive then go for it you may have found a great pocket of the company (they def exist)! The other major issue with Criteo is it’s downright pitiful show of DEI. Pre 2020 there was absolutely none and even refusal by leadership to share diversity statistics. Post 2020 there are now some weak attempts that feel very much like playing lip service without any commitment to organizational change. It’s also a disturbingly homogenous workforce in the US offices. I personally sat through so many cringe “diversity” programs by well meaning but utterly clueless white people. DEI leadership hire is inexplicably a white woman?! The lack of self awareness by the Company at this point is honestly inexcusable.

avatar
Criteo Response
3y
Hello, First, we would like to thank you for taking the time to sit down and give a feedback. We are happy to see that you enjoyed the international environment in a context of having a good work life balance and respect of your time. We are sorry to hear that you felt that your work and different projects lacked of true purposes and impact. We are trying to make our strategy clear for everyone, and truly think that each and every Criteo make our boat go faster. Criteo has committed to strengthening it's DEI with the appointment of Head of DEI and a team to support this journey, specifically Region DEI Managers in Americas, EMEA and APAC respectively. Just 15 months in, we are committed to continuing to demonstrate our investment in this area, and appreciating that this is a journey that will continue to evolve with the support of our CEO and C-Suite. Our Americas DEI Leader started in January and has already commenced working with Colleges and Partnerships to increase our opportunities towards a more diverse workforce in the US. We conduct our voices survey twice yearly, and we have recently conducted our annual managers survey. The feedback on inclusion has increased, as well as manager effectiveness. At the same time we know we need to continue to improve and therefore we analyse the elements of this feedback (including verbatum comments) closely to address any concerns from a culture or leadership stanpoint.

Explore other reviews about Criteo

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great environment, great people to work with

Cons

Need to go back to office

avatar
Criteo Response
19h
We're thrilled to receive such positive feedback and to know that you've found a place where you can grow and thrive at Criteo. Thank you for sharing and for your trust all these years. It's great to have you on the team!
2.0
Jan 31, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Smart, hardworking people at the individual contributor level (many of whom are now gone). Little micro-managing, but that’s because everyone’s bandwidth is near 0

Cons

Post–new CEO, the company has descended into complete chaos. There is no transparency around decisions that impact teams and roles. There have been consistent strategy, personnel, and supplier changes with no explanation, accountability, or follow-through. Cons, continued: Employee input and performance do not matter. Decisions feel driven by appeasing BoD and optics rather than results, input and reality. The culture has become a corporate hellscape of: Endless reorganizations with no clear rationale, including layoffs with no reasoning Vague all-hands meetings that avoid real issues, even when directly asked A massive disconnect between the C-suite and day-to-day reality Eroded trust and growing position insecurity Middle managers incentivized to prioritize managing up & executive optics over team advocacy “Return to Office” policy put in place when promised a “Work from Anywhere” position, where the RTO policy differs across employees’ location Little to no growth opportunities despite high performance Under-market average compensation that was justified by locale, “Work from Anywhere”, and flexibility — which was recently rolled back A clear favoritism to those that “talk the talk” vs “performance with numbers”

10
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All