Comfortable job, but not interesting tasks - Senior Backend Developer Python Criteo Employee Review

Great environment, great people to work with

Need to go back to office

Earlier in my time at Criteo, the culture was a true strength. Teams were collaborative, capable, and invested in delivering value to clients. There are still incredibly smart, hardworking people across the organization when they are given the resources needed to deliver strong work.

Morale has declined significantly due to direction from upper leadership. Executive communications often feel scripted and disconnected from the realities teams are navigating. Employees are facing burnout, layoffs, no merit compensation growth, and increasing workloads without clear strategic guidance. Leadership layers have expanded in ways that create bottlenecks and slow decision making, while individual contributors lack clarity on priorities and long term direction. Internal mobility has been restricted, limiting opportunities for promotion or role movement at the same time compensation progression has been removed. Salary transparency was removed from internal and external role descriptions, which has impacted trust. Despite positive performance, cost discipline appears to disproportionately affect employees rather than being shared equitably across leadership levels. Additionally, a return to office policy has been implemented, including for employees originally hired as remote. This has added strain and uncertainty for teams.