[Mobile Games] Pokemon Go Current Niantic Employee Reveals What Is it Like to Work at Niantic, Says Product Managers are Supposed to Please and Serve Engineers

[[~OMAR~]]

 

Trainers, last year we published an article about a former Niantic employee and what is like to work at Niantic. They weren’t satisfied (that’s why they are former employees), and the story reached out to many people. The person explained they got punished by echoing Pokemon Go players’ complaints.

 

Today, we discovered a new story, but this time it comes from a current Niantic employee. The thread was posted on April 28, 2023, by a current Niantic employee, under Senior Product Manager on Glassdoor. The title says “No Leadership,” so you already have an idea where this is going. The person shared pros and cons, and the funny thing is they said only two positive things about Niantic.

Most of the things written explain a lot about the current situation. The person says the current PMs are the “weak ones” who please and serve engineers. He reveals that “decisions are always prioritized by how much engineers like about doing them, how much VP engineering likes about them, and how much the CEO favors them.”

 

According to the current Niantic employee, the CEO doesn’t use external vendors, doesn’t like sharing data with anyone, and doesn’t like people to stay at home playing Pokemon Go.

Here is what the person has to say about the current situation at Niantic and what is like working in that environment. This was posted on Glassdoor. Please note that you must add a review or compensation to see the review.

 

“No Leadership

 

Pros

Individual contributors are good at executions

Engineers individually have a decent tech background

Cons

 

Leadershipis a joke. Mid-management is an epic joke. Let’s be clear. This company does not have a northstar. Al they know is they want to use AR and geolocation to do something cool. They focus on solutions instead of purposes. Mid-management, especially tech lead managers and recently promoted engineering directors are junior people who are not supposed to be managers. This company has a ridiculous bias toward engineering. | was once told by the now head of Pokemon GO (eng) that product managers are supposed to please and serve engineers. This perfectly summarizes why Niantic is still in such a mess today. The product managers who still linger today are the weak ones who please engineers well – the strong ones all left. Decisions are always prioritized by how much engineers like ‘about doing them, how much VP engineering likes about them, and how much our CEO favors them. Our CEO has a very unique taste – he doesn’t like to use external vendors, he doesn’t like sharing data with rest of the company, and he doesn’t like people to stay at home playing his game. Our CPO could not be weaker – a typical Japanese elite who cares so much about hierarchy, seniority, shiny titles, and
harmony with his boss. He literally doesn’t make any decisions. Our team of PMs, although most come with shiny backgrounds, are just minions and servers for the eng teams. We never talk about impact,

 

never talk about how much money this feature will make for the company. We always talk about constraints about privacy, about GMT, about the release schedule, and about getting the checklists done. This is not how a mature and productive product management workforce is supposed to work. Engineers take all the control, but engineering leads are myopic. Principal architect from Google would brag about his olden days all the time. He would speak of database columns he changed so that we pay less money to GCP. Engleads would over-engineer their small products so much, but never listen to product advices. There is no speaking of impact, no speaking of making money for the company, no speaking of the next level up beyond the pathetic AR and geolocation. If you are a PM, don’t come to this place.”

Now we know why they don’t listen to us.

 

What are your thoughts about this? We would like to hear from you, so please leave a comment below.

 

[https://www.futuregamereleases.com/2023/05/pokemon-go-current-niantic-employee-reveals-what-is-it-like-to-work-at-niantic-says-product-managers-are-supposed-to-please-and-serve-engineers/]