ByteDance reviews

3.4

51% would recommend to a friend

(4,229 total reviews)
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Rubo Liang

59% approve of CEO

49% positive business outlook

ByteDance has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 4,229 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The ByteDance employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Tecnologías de la información industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

4K reviews
5.0
Dec 20, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Above average compensation, - Smart colleagues! It feels awesome to collaborate and be surrounded by some of the brightest software engineers around, - Great benefits (amazing pantry, free lunch everyday, lots of company swag all year round, etc.) - and contrary to what many reviews here say... Pretty good work life balance! However, do note that this is largely helped by the fact that we're based in Singapore and thus exist in the same timezone as Beijing, so international meetings don't happen at odd hours for us compared to offices in London and Bay Area, for instance.

Cons

- Less annual leaves than my previous company (but with the ability to carry forward unlimited leaves), - Slower career growth for non-China based employees (according to my co-workers) - and the occasional language barriers when dealing with international teams (which honestly isn't a huge deal breaker because everyone can speak English to some degree anyway)

1.0
Apr 17, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Psychologist available via phone. - Centrally located. - Free coffee, but no milk during weekends or holidays.

Cons

- Watching thousands of videos a night with horrible songs slowly but surely melts the brain. - Intense pressure to have a next to perfect accuracy. With badly translated guidelines and constantly changing rules, this is impossible. - Stretching the limits of the law beyond imaginable. In the first week, I had to sign an appendix to the contract allowing ‘rotational’ shifts to be put in place, night work, work on holidays, work on weekends. It was either sign or resign. After a few months, these shifts have become standard. Only one person is “granted” to do the early shift for one week, maximum. Everyone else works in the night shift and on weekends plus holidays. Extra pay is the lawful minimum. - Days off are completely random, could be a Monday and a Thursday this week. A Sunday and a Tuesday next week. 6/7 day in a row work weeks are commonplace. - 6 month probation period, during which 70% of the team has been fired by the supervisor while they were sick or on holidays. The HR guy didn’t even bother to inform them. - During the job interview, the senior recruiter lies about “possibilities” in the company. But you have to wait out the 6 month probation period. After this, you’re told there are none. End of the line here. - Supervisor is incompetent beyond belief. Supervisors work hours are roughly from 11 to 18:00 hours. 99% of the team arrives at 16:00 and stays till 01:00. Who exactly are you supervising then? Doesn’t take the effort to get to know anyone, only communicates with favorites. Doesn’t know the very basics of the work we do after being on the job 6 months. - Supervisor intimidates and lashes out at anyone who dares to be critical. Does not have any sense of self-criticism. Blames the whole world. Needs to be told by lower-ranking team members how to do job. - Constant lies about reasons for radical changes or why there isn’t any new staff hired to take the pressure off the workload. Blame is always put on “China”, where in fact only the local supervisor decides these things. - As the office in which its located doesn’t have staff operating after 17:00 the air-condition is either off and leaves it smelling like a dump or on freezer mode and leaves everyone sick. Windows can’t be opened. Dishes aren’t done during the weekends, toilets smell like a sewer. - Pay is terrible, especially considering the toll it takes on personal health and family life.

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ByteDance Response
7y
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We truly apologize for your negative working experience at ByteDance. And we will take your feedback into serious consideration. If you have any further concerns, please feel free to contact us at global-oc@bytedance.com.
1.0
Apr 4, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

free meals and snacks nothing more

Cons

1. No leadership. Leader wont be happy if u leave early, even if finishing all jobs 2. Long long long long working hours, 60+hours, too unhuman. 3. Arrogant young people everywhere, dont listen to your advice sometimes. 4. Dont care about worker's lives and health. Everything for free was just to make people for long hours. Dont really care about career development.

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ByteDance Response
7y
Thank you for your time to share the feedback with us. And we truly apologize on your negative working experience at ByteDance. We will take your feedback into serious consideration and take actions accordingly. ByteDance is thrived to continuously improve working experience and build up best place for explorers to work.
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