Worst place to work -- insanely political and demoralizing - Anonymous employee TikTok Employee Review

1.0
8 July 2021
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

We're successful despite ourselves, due to the app's popularity.

Cons

1) Insane hours (to have impact, you'll need to work with many colleagues in China and hours of overlap start at 5-6pm Pacific). 2) STRONG China bias: your colleagues in China will have more influence and impact, period. Colleagues regularly avoid collaborating with US counterparts to 'move quickly.' 3) Many team leaders are power-hungry and compete for scope at the expense of individual contributors. 4) The company philosophy is to intentionally allow for role overlap and fuzzy swim lanes to have teams compete. 5) On most teams, it's an extremely long and tedious process to get promoted, even if you've been performing well and there is a business need. 6) Benefits don't even come close to comparing to top tech companies like Facebook and Google. 7) They (so far) have been saying they will be inflexible about the ability to work from home after the pandemic, even though the hours are not sustainable. 8) Very poor senior leadership, lack of clear direction.

Explore other reviews about TikTok

5.0
6 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Learn a lot of new things! - Great benefits - Interesting user-facing products to work on

Cons

- Language barriers if you don't speak CN - Working late

2.0
15 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pay is level with industry and actual work is somewhat interesting depending on the team you're on

Cons

In my experience, career growth can feel very limited if you are not part of the dominant internal language and cultural network. A significant amount of important context, communication, and decision-making happens in Chinese, which can make non-Chinese-speaking employees feel excluded from key conversations and promotion opportunities. The environment did not feel as inclusive as it should be for a global company. Advancement often felt less tied to performance and more tied to whether you were connected to the right groups or able to operate fluently within the Chinese-speaking side of the organization. Over time, it felt like non-Chinese-speaking employees had fewer long-term career paths and were at risk of being replaced by people who could better fit that internal operating model. Things also move very slowly because employees are often given access only to the bare minimum needed to do their jobs. There is a heavy push toward using AI tools, but in practice it can make it harder to get help from real people. Instead of getting quick support, you often have to spend time going through AI bots or internal tools before getting a useful answer.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All