The Negative Reviews Are True - Engineer SharkNinja Employee Review

Where to begin. Wow. First of all - the currently employed positive reviews read like they are from the HR and recruitment departments. Which are totally separated from "where the donuts are made" by a giant wall: on one side: HR, Legal, accounting, recruitment... basically administrative jobs that run the company. On the other side of that big wall? Pure product development hell on earth. If you have ever worked anywhere else besides SharkNinja developing product, you understand that there is a right way to do things. When you then work at SharkNinja, you witness the Wrong Way, which is in itself quite amusing... and even educational. Launching product at SharkNinja allows you to witness how to fail in such amazingly huge ways that you get to witness why quality systems are useful. You get to learn why effective program management is necessary. And you also understand the importance of working with talented individuals who excel at what they do. There are talented people at this company- but people with real world experience outside of the usage of Microsoft Powerpoint and Greenshot/SnapIt and Microsoft Outlook is extremely rare. In Needham, there may be at any given time 3-5 people actually designing and engineering product. The majority of this is done in the China office, off-site, by the real development team who is burdened with the insane deadlines and pressures involved with them. "Engineers" and "Managers" in Needham are effectively Project Managers- they can massage and point the China team in the direction they want them to move, but ultimately it is the China Team's call, and they often don't need Needham interference. The culture here is rotten to it's core. It is built around the all-important Executive Review, which is often held 2-3 times a week. Needham employees goals are to present powerpoint presentations to The Marks and inform them on program progress- whether it is real or manufactured. Often is it manufactured results because the people who say Yes To The Marks are the ones who get promoted. The people who inform them of reality often get frozen in their positions, and eventually removed from Executive Reviews. If someone holds a VP title or above at SharkNinja, they have either become a Yes Man (there are no Yes Women at SharkNinja (VPs)... for misogynistic reasons) or you were hired into that role and in order to hold onto that role, you must conform. The VPs who retain their role understand how to beat their team into delivering. The VPs who do not abuse their teams toward success will eventually be outed from the company, with no vacation pay-outs (VPs get "infinite" vacation so that the company does not have to cut them a check when they are forced out). Engineering teams are insanely green- most of the engineers at SN are fresh out of school- they have no industry experience, and don't know any other job outside of SN- which is important for their retention. Travel here is extensive. 20-25% travel for any product development facing job is a lie- you will go to China a minimum of 3 times a year for 2+ week stints. 5-7 trips is average. Some people do much more (and get promoted eventually to directors for their sacrifice). You will be on the phone at 7am-9am and 8pm-10pm with China 2-3 times a week. Product development timelines are 8 months from concept to launch. This is for simple products like blenders to complex products like robots. Development scope creep happens at all times of this development cycle. Shouting and swearing in Executive Reviews is believed to decrease tooling times and software validation. If you are on the product development facing part of the company (non administrative): If you drink casually, you will turn into an alcoholic. If you have a family, you will grow more distant from them due to the extensive travel. If you value your work, and invest yourself in the product you are developing, you will develop anxiety during the development cycle. And you will develop depression when it is either canceled due to failure, or launched as a semi-dangerous and questionable product. "Career advancement" is a real thing here- if you can sell your soul to the company. But as someone who has worked at non-disfunctional organizations, title and position at SN does not translate to other orgs with real executive structure, real quality systems, software departments (SN has no software engineering), etc. Executive positions here are earned through being a man and by gaining Mark's endearment. But other companies don't know this so you can effectively grow your title and fake your way through an interview and possibly gain a job at a sane organization where you are severely underqualified. In summary: unless you owe a gambling debt, or bought too much of a house for your family, or you have demons in your mind or skeletons in your closet and you want to lose yourself to a job that will consume your soul entirely, the money and "position" you are offered is too good to be true. Walk away. Don't do it. Read the other negative reviews and understand that they are real. And that these fantasmical stories of The Marks and how horrendous the work life balance here is (and the product engineering) are in fact true. This place is comically bad. And if you do care about your work, and your performance, it will erode you. It will also ultimately erode your skillsets- because you will use none of them for work. You will become a powerpoint ninja. If sewing a bluetooth earpiece to your ear is attractive, or getting shouted at in executive reviews by white men about what is essentially a household appliance that will be built and sold for 1 year and never impact the planet in a good way, or becoming an alcoholic and earning yourself a divorce is appealing, SharkNinja is for you.