Zynga Employee Reviews about "layoff"

Cons

middle and top management highly inexperienced - which fail to motivate high performers, and end up losing them. Since IPO has been highly unstable, and too many re-orgs every quarter. Compensation might have been good, if stock value had gotten north of IPO price (by comparison other tech startups are trading at 100-150% above IPO) office politics & you need to know the right people/ be in the right team to get noticed for your performance - no longer a meritocracy. Too many layoffs in the past 6-8 months, and the upper management has failed to deliver a consistent future plan.

Cons

- Content: This one is important as Zynga is theoretically a content company; they can't make it and what they do make doesn't make money. That's really the problem at Zynga, they haven't had a hit game in years and they're relying on old games (Poker, Words with Friends, FarmVille 2) and Slots to squeak along. - Leadership: There is none, so there's not much to say. I mean, the CFO just stepped down with no reason given with less than 2 years of service. That should tell you everything you need to know. - Size: The company has probably 500-700 more people than it needs and no discipline to keep headcount down. If you are considering a job at Zynga understand that you're probably walking into a situation where a layoff is necessary in the near future.

Cons

lack of appreciation for employees 'be glad you have a job' atmosphere increased workload due to massive rounds of layoffs

Cons

Poor management. Managers receive no manager training. No career guidance. Layoffs are brutal and poorly managed. Company is lost and the moves it's making won't save it.

Cons

Seem to be stagnating and may have further layoffs

Cons

-Layoffs and frequent cost- cutting measure are now the norm -MVP mentality and overly aggressive release cycles ensure poor quality and lackluster production values. -'New' game features are often reskins of successful features from previous games -Titles being developed in the SF studio have drastically dwindled (with Poker and WWF being the bulk of the development staff) so options to work on new projects there are extremely limited. -Poor stock performance

Cons

1) Employee retention - losing a lot of talent due to either budget cuts/lay offs or just leaving in general due to environment. 2) Management doesn't seem to listen or care when it comes to great ideas or suggestions 3) Wasteful spending on certain things that led to office closings and layoffs including outsourcing 4) Community to player relations are at an all time low 5) Player retention is poor 6) Listening to advice/complaints is very poor

Cons

Lowest morale in all of SF and Silicon Valley right now. The last round of layoffs ended up cutting some of the best performers at Zynga (HR and C suite's decision-making abilities are questionable), leaving behind some cheaper but very mediocre performers. My studio has too many leads and too political to get anything done. All upper management cares about is pleasing the investors (not their players or employees). They haven't been able to ship a good mobile title organically, so they tap into their free cash flow and acquire other mobile gaming companies while cutting headcount. Great for the bottom line temporarily, but terrible in the long-run because some of the top performers are gone and you cannot make great games without them. They always claim there will not be more layoffs but a 18% layoffs occurred in May and an 15% layoffs occurred in late January. Do not believe anything upper management says anymore.

Cons

constant layoffs across functions and studios