Overall a terrible experience - Anonymous employee TikTok Employee Review

2.0
13 Apr 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Not many... I had "camaraderie" with my teammates which was great. We were in the same mess together.

Cons

TikTok has experienced extraordinary growth in a short period of time. My sense is that they have not hired the right people for the roles they're in and it is a mess - the consistently high attrition reflects this. No clear business strategy, poor leadership, no clear opportunities to develop. Refer to having a "flat structure" but my experience was incredibly hierarchical. No org charts or visible role titles means project work is siloed and clunky, you can never find who you need to speak to and have no visibility outside of your lines of reporting/direct team. I saw on Linkedin some TikTok employees in the same role as me in the same job location but I had never seen/heard of them before! Overall a terrible experience and my mental health has significantly improved in the time since I finished. I acknowledge this may be a different experience outside of the business/team I worked in.

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 Jun 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.

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