Biggest disappointment in my career - Engineering Manager SoundCloud Employee Review

2.0
21 Oct 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

ICs and other engineering managers are supportive and kind to one another. Most likely due to bonding over poor management over on the engineering side.

Cons

SoundCloud used to be a wonderful place to work from what I hear. Unclear what caused a major chaos in the Engineering, Product, and Design organization. I can tell you what has not improved -- senior leadership. It is a disappointing group of individuals who focuses on the wrong things and prioritizes "getting it down" over their people. If you suck up to senior leadership and abide by their rules then you will succeed here. If not, then expect them to gaslight you and make you think that you are not doing your job well. The tech debt has accumulated so much over time that teams are stretched thin and nothing can get done. Product managers are incredibly demanding but so incompetent that they cannot get anything done without a help from others. Yet they blame the engineering teams from blocking them. Why not pick up a new skill and learn how to do basic things yourself? Why not try to learn how the internal systems work to ask better questions? If you want to be a people manager here, think twice about what you are getting yourself into because many EMs have left before hitting their one year anniversary.

Explore other reviews about SoundCloud

5.0
21 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

great team and great experience

Cons

none (is contract work with no guarantee to work full time)

3.0
26 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The culture is great; everyone who works there truly cares about keeping the product alive. The people who work here are great people overall too

Cons

Resources are really limited, there's often a lot of organization change. strategy changes really quickly without structure

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