Sorely in need of good leadership, vision
Pros
- Exceptional pay and benefits - Recognized and well-respected brand - Talented colleagues, for the most part - Community outreach programs and internal diversity initiatives You get to work on a product that has significant global impact, you get to do it with generally awesome people, and you're treated very well. Twitter genuinely promotes a culture and espouses a mission you can be proud of.
Cons
- Myopic, disorganized, and gutless eng/product leadership - Opaque promotion process which was actually worsened through improvement attempts - Miserable open office space is a constant source of distraction - Serious, quantifiable issues with lack of equitable treatment of women and minorities, especially in eng, that the company does not seem to be taking seriously - Most executives refuse to accept responsibility for mistakes and shortcomings, and make a mockery of an ostensibly transparent culture by dodging hard questions at all-hands meetings The root of the problem is that good leadership at Twitter is lacking, both at the executive level and within the engineering and product orgs. There is not a shared clear, consistent, and bold vision for the future of the product and the company, so much as there is focus on making incremental changes to engagement/revenue metrics and spinning numbers to appease the Street (logged-out, anyone?). Most infuriatingly, few C-level and other members of senior management take responsibility for shortcomings, or provide real answers to hard questions raised by employees. I have watched Twitter flap for over a year with little progress, and now, understandably, investors are becoming angry. Costolo served as a scapegoat for Wall Street, but the truth is that he was very capable, and will be difficult to replace.
