Sinking Ship - Software Engineer Mediavine Employee Review

2.0
20 June 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Smart coworkers Modern tech stack

Cons

Everything else. Layoffs. Layoffs. Layoffs. CEO told us that he didn't want to have larger than a 250 person company. That made people in the 250 feel comfortable but then they started practically antagonizing staff. Heavily playing the blame game in a previously "blameless" culture. My last year at this place was miserable. They went out of their way to fire people before their yearly bonuses (10-20%) came out. They fired some people a week prior. These are 15-30k bonuses for most right before Christmas. People who had been there for many years. The CEO bought a $17mm house prior to this. It was so obnoxious it was in the news. He took in PPP loans while doing layoffs, so interesting timing. Did I mention in my time there it started to feel like they were hiring more lawyers than anyone else? Why do you need so many lawyers all of a sudden? PPP loans? Lawsuits? The entire exec team are a bunch of low skilled programmers who seem to be checking out now that they all have huge houses and are probably bored of being at the same place for 10 years. CTO left this year. The HR Exec is one of the rudest, most unsympathetic HR folk I've had the displeasure of dealing with. They decided to change our annual reviews to once a year for the entire company. What this did was was make people who had early year reviews have to wait until winter to get their review and potential salary increase. They told us they would backpay it. What they didn't tell us was that would be the year where they laid a bunch of people off and fired *entire* teams (QA) before they could even get a review. The people they fired in these layoffs received ONE WEEK salary for every YEAR they were there. One week!! When we made it absolutely clear that we weren't happy with this and had concerns that they would use it as a reason to fire us at the end of the year (really, they're going to backpay half a years salary increase after layoffs, AND our bonus?) HR Exec was absolutely rude and didn't care. And guess what, they did, as I mentioned previously. The company loves to act big on diversity but in my years there they only had meetings and yearly get togethers in conservative States/Cities like Texas and Florida that someone who is trans/lgbtq would potentially never want to visit. Apparently they forgot that diversity isn't just AA. The company is a sinking ship. I doubt it will be around in a couple of years. Probably because the CEO sold it so maybe you'll still have a job. Don't waste your time. It's not the worst company I've worked at but it's up there.

Explore other reviews about Mediavine

5.0
21 Aug 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Mediavine invests in its employees and provides plenty of opportunities to develop new skills. Leadership has been making a noticeable effort to support employees while encouraging open communication and feedback. Colleagues are always willing to share knowledge, and there's a genuine sense of wanting to see clients as well as the company succeed.

Cons

Like any company, there can be challenges and shifts in priorities as the industry changes. This has impacted some colleagues, which is never easy, but the company has handled it with respect and care.

1
1.0
3 June 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They had a very strong LGBTQ+ hiring initiative, despite the national political effort to dissuade employers away from doing that.

Cons

I have never experienced working directly with an executive leadership team who strived on a daily basis so intentionally to burn the company to the ground as quickly as possible. The laughably bad business decisions which were made, the very public and juvenile infighting between executives, and the pathetic excuses which followed when mass layoffs "had to happen" is just... sad. It is not surprising, but it's just sad. MV could have been such a great place to work. But, instead "toxic" would have been a real blessing. Working there was like surviving "Squid Game"... every single day. That is no way to live.

5
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