Zynga Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Zynga full-time for more than a year

Pros – The work environment is quite chilled out. You will get to work with crazy, passionate & self driven people.

Cons – The Job roles however, are not so well defined here.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Zynga full-time

Pros – [1] Excellent food for breakfast, lunch and evening snacks. 5 different caterers for 5 working days, one of them is a 5-star hotel. Multi-national cuisines - salads, soups, main course, starters and icecream everyday! You'll love this place if you're a foodie. Only 1 or 2 companies in India probably have better food than here. Period.
[2] Quarterly appraisal cycle and bonus payouts (that is, you don't have to wait an year for your pay hike or bonus payout :-)).
[3] Smart developers around. Zynga hired a lot of smart folks from good companies/colleges (I hear hiring standards have declined recently, I'm not sure)
[4] Good growth and quick change in roles (this 'pro' existed 2 years back, may not be now)

Cons – (I'm not gonna just compalain about the cons here. Wherever applicable, I'll indicate how you can use these cons to your advantage, if your conscience / opportunity at company allows. See points mentioned in '=>')

[1] Clearly not an engineering-oriented company. Very few (I repeat, very few) people get to work on good-technology. Most developers work on projects involving only editing XML files, adding PHP array entries, editing CSS, integrating animation/image files into front-end code etc. Only products that US office doesn't want transitions to India office. The other way around, products that's technologically cool built out of India office gets transitioned to US. Around 60-80% of the developers here can be quickly replaced by front-end developers or multi-media chaps (who just have an NIIT course on CSS/JS/Flash).
=> Keep your expectations clear. Don't come here to work on cool technologies or anything. Earn salary and leave.
[2] Lacks dignity of labour. Clearly, following is the tiered system one would notice within a week of joining:
1st-grade employees: Product Managers, Producers, UI Designers, Artists
2nd-grade employees: Developers, Engineering Managers
3rd-grade employees: QA
Typically for all the good things that happen in your product, Product Managers and Producers get credit. For any bad things, blame typically goes to developers and QA. General Managers almost always listen only to Product Managers or Producers. As a developer, I get deeply hurt sometimes. Can't imagine what would our QA be feeling every day!
=> If you want to join Zynga as developer, come with clear expectations that you're not respected like in other companies. Then you'll feel better.
[3] Product Managers and producers call the shots in almost all teams (to know what a 'producer' role means, you may have to google a bit). As a developer, you'll have little to no freedom to disagree with them. Engineering managers are powerless here - there is little they're able to do, even if they want to. This has a direct negative impact on developer's work-life balance, severely. A freshly graduated MBA can make 7 to 10 year experienced developers and their engineering manager dance to his/her tunes. Unfortunately, Product Managers in India Studio are very short-sighted (focus is on that particular month's revenue, sometimes that week's - instead of thinking long-term). This attitude is obviously bad for company as well as developers. Developers end-up working for short-term goals and hence sub-standard projects.
=> You can expect a good hike / promotion if you're in good terms with Product Managers and Producers in your team. Their quarterly feedback on you matters a lot (I repeat, a lot)!!! If you're into developing features, do whatever they tell you to, howsoever foolish it might seem or howsoever damaging their decisions is on product - don't question. Also, don't spend unnecessary effort in impressing these Engineering Manager fellows with your good programming skills or hard work or anything. If possible, move out of feature development and work on some platform stuff with an architect directly.
[4] There is lot of office politics (a lot) - this is not a general statement that one passes in any software company, but a bit more severe. This one involves a lot of people across roles. There are multiple nexuses in office.
=> If your conscience allows you, be part of one such nexus. Be in good books of key people in your team and company HR. Never (I repeat, never) provide correct feedback about these key people in your team to HR.

Advice to Senior Management – Develop the company to be a more engineering-oriented - other this attrition would continue (may be aggravate). Overhaul the India office.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Zynga full-time for more than a year

Pros – Food, Food, nothing much to mention about

Cons – >> Attitude of HR [Big heads] as Appraisal, Perks & Compensation is in their Hands. Never seen a company like this before.
   Its like supreme power given to Monkeys, their experience & Maturity level is way below their knees. Professionalism, Culture & Ethics is absolutely shitty.
>> Only people who lick HR boots get good hikes & perks, all other dedicated employees are ignored.
>> Not a place for prompt, disciplined, silent & smart workers.
>> HR promises many things while offering, hardly keep such promises.

Advice to Senior Management – >> Try to recognise people with open mindedness. Dont presume things & reward people of your choice.
>> All that glitters is not Gold, recognise individual's contribution towards work than their licking/boasting capabilities.
>> Stop playing with people's career. Day is not too far where everyone will witness the ship sinking.
>> Follow the 3M rule: Effective utilisation of Men, Material & Money - Core thing missing in Zynga [Colossal waste of 3M].

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Zynga full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Food. Good enough facilities. Amiable security staff (nothing else to write !!)

Cons – In Zynga India HR and ceratain bosses has the ultimate say against any reason & justification. haughty and ludicrous HR top. Top notch favoritism. Shameless mouth-blabbering wins over dedication and skill. Corruption in art-outsourcing. The manager who initiated large amount art-outsourcing to certain indian companies draws huge amounts from them as fringe-benefit, monthly. preposterous country manager.

Basicaly The top bosses wants to pocket as much dollars as possible from USA, while all this lasts. This is a place for mouth-blabbers, smart-talkers and shameless butt-kissers. Not a place for skilled folks who consider there careers important.

Advice to Senior Management – Enjoy your life. But remember, if you are unethical and rotten to your subordinates , it reflects everywhere, even to yourself. Why this life?

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Zynga full-time for less than a year

Pros – Good food. Good compensation. There is nothing else good about Zynga.

Cons – The HR has control over everything that happens at Zynga.
Performance does not matter
Way too much office politics
Career growth takes a backseat
Contract employees are treated like crap
The money and employees are underutilized.
Its a sinking ship and nothing is being done to revive it.
Very unorganised in general.

Advice to Senior Management – Come up with new better and creative games and not just improvise on the same old existing games.
There s way too much money spent on keeping the employees enterained which is a waste sometimes.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Zynga full-time for less than a year

Pros – Talented people to work with ,challenging projects and work on new ip for a huge platform

Cons – Work life balance is not great.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Zynga full-time for less than a year

Pros – Really passioante people. Know what they are doing and love to do it. Good compensation.

Cons – Managers have a greater say than they ought to.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Zynga as an intern for less than a year

Pros – There will be lot of team outings. Food is amazing. Work depends on what team you get into. People are fun.

Cons – work depends on what team you get into and for most parts its sucky. Work life balance is pretty much screwed up

Advice to Senior Management – come up with better games and game-play rather than reskinning the same gameplay all the time

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Zynga full-time for more than a year

Pros – Exciting work
Rewarded for Ownership
Great facilities
Pampered by Employers

Cons – Hectic schedule.
Work life balance needs to prioritised
Office politics

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Zynga full-time for less than a year

Pros – steep learning curve initially,great benefits and you get to play a lot of games. scope for great analysis and learning

Cons – nepotism,incompetent people leading some teams

– I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company