Zynga Reviews

Pros

Zynga is a public company wrapped around a group of startups, with each team having significant freedoms to choose their own technology, strategy, and designs without being forced to tow the company line on core decisions. The teams heavily embrace an open community within this ecosystem, and there is significant cooperation between these teams to share technology, processes, and code to allow sister teams to prosper as opposed to companies where teams are in constant competition over resources. Nor do teams have their technical / creative decisions restricted by a rigid company persona, or are forced to leverage specific technologies due to primarily political decisions. Sitting in between these teams is the Cloud Engineering team, which works with every team to support and disseminate new processes, technologies and patterns across this loosely coupled community. We enjoy the opportunity of tracking the different technologies, challenges, and successes from our peers, increasing our own knowledge base as Zynga continues to grow. In return, we focus on pairing solutions with partners throughout the company, and leading teams on the path of prosperity. Zynga in general has a very strong work life balance, with generous PTO (not gated by seniority), maternity/paternity leave, and benefits to care for your family and pets. Our team has taken this as a core tenet to balance the challenges of supporting such a wide variety of clients and their needs, by emphasizing the importance of regular PTO, predictable work hours, and the role of remote-work.

Cons

Zynga is a multinational, and many teams are relatively distributed across different offices and time zones, so communication is often electronic rather than personal. While this introduces us to friends and co-workers around the world, opportunities to work together in person are rare. Commuting time to our major offices like San Francisco can be challenging, so we heavily emphasize and subsidize public transportation or shuttles where available. Senior management has changed frequently in the past 10 years, shuffling organizations and strategy, but the current CEO has put Zynga into a continuous growth trend for the last couple years, and seems poised to have brought strategic stability.

Pros

I’ve been a game developer for over 25 years. My experience with Zynga has exceeded my expectations in every aspect including compensation, benefits, and projects. The biggest dream come true, however, is the work-life balance: being given the trust and autonomy to work remotely when needed. Additionally, Zynga’s commitment to employee health and safety during the Coronavirus pandemic has made quarantining a smooth adjustment, and allowed the company to continue to grow and actually flourish since more folks are sheltering at home playing Zynga games. I am grateful and humbled to be part of the Zynga family!

Cons

I waited too long to look for a job here.

Pros

I was paid very well at Zynga, and they spoiled us with food and snacks and outings.

Cons

The management was often in flux and not very focused. I was often left without guidance or any substantive work.

Pros

free food and lots of parties

Cons

the parties are really to numb how uninteresting the work is. And the cliques in your team show at those parties. So kinda like high school. Among the game companies I've worked at, my coworkers and the environment at a whole is more close to high school. That's the impression I got to this date if I were to summarize.

Pros

Great family-friendly benefits - generous maternity leave (6 months paid!) and paternity leave, backup childcare, parents groups. Many folks have kids and are pretty understanding of employee's personal commitments. Good compensation - competitive salary, unlimited PTO, stock options, 401k match. Treats its employees well - good culture, lots of employee groups, awesome food. In general Zynga has been very supportive and accommodating during pandemic and really has made a great effort to take care of its employees as well as its contractors--all contractors (culinary staff, janitors, etc) are still getting paid during pandemic. Great executive leadership - Frank is fantastic, I respect him a lot. He has very strong understanding of business fundamentals driving video games and he holds the course. He came in after a string of poor leaders (stock price was ~$2 when he joined) and he has definitely turned things around (stock is now over $9 four years later). He has a good team under him and has had to make a lot of tough decisions but ultimately they were the right ones.

Cons

Not making as many new games as before. If you are looking to make a brand new game, odds are slim you will work on one immediately if you are in the US at least. Most US operations are around "forever franchises", meaning games that have been around a while but still generate significant revenue. Not as sexy but good business.

Pros

Strong teams Great benefits Flexible culture Impactful work with leading technologies Perks - Great food and Parties Opportunities to grow Sound Management

Cons

Fast pace work with a laser focus on growing the business is great, but can be intense at times. Business units can operate in silos and may not feel as accessible from other teams.

Pros

a lot of great benefits

Cons

mixed bag of people to work with/for. Some are great and some can be difficult and frustrating to work under. Middle management can sometimes be process heavy for the sake of process to seem smart or well thought out when they get in the way more than anything.

Pros

Free food, attempts at creating culture and company spirit.

Cons

No leadership. Senior executives act as if it is employees' privilege they show up for work. Lots of internal conflicts between leaders, studios, and teams. No direction.