Challenging projects, great work life balance, multi-cultural environment - Software Engineer Criteo Employee Review

5.0
Nov 6, 2018
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Impressive tech stack. Still a good mix of startup spirit and big company: 'No fear' approach on the one hand and all needed resources to try on the other (talents, infrastructure). If a project failed/late/killed - happens, keep moving (no blame/punishment). Proactivity is encouraged and expected: no matter how junior you are, new ideas are welcomed (of course there is a challenge to get them planned). I.e. there is a Hackathon every year which gives the winners an opportunity to work on their projects. Internal mobility: managers try to take into account engineers preferences and help to change the scope if a guy doesn't want to work on the topiс anymore (unfortunately not always possible, but the effort is away bigger than in my previous companies). Also, there is a cross-offices Voyager program: any engineer can join another R&D team for a few weeks to learn new stuff. Diverse environment: >10 nationalities for appx 100 people in the office. Work-life balance: no work during the weekends or late in the evening, flexible working hours (people can shift a bit their schedule when needed, can WFH occasionally; no official WFH policy though). Reasonable management: most managers have regular 1-1s with their direct reports + occasional ones with the rest (i.e. anybody can request a 1-1 with any Director or VP); top management is open for discussions on any topic (even negative anonymous reviews are being discussed in a positive manner: 'lets brainstorm together what we can do better')

Cons

Working with HQ in Paris is challenging due to 9 hours difference + lots of technical dependencies (management tries to mitigate it by having isolated projects when possible, but it's still hard). Less variety of projects than in Paris (natural for any non-HQ office and difficult to change). Diving stock price (and no recipe to fix it so far) Quarterly planning is heavy and takes lots of time.

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Criteo Response
6y
We are delighted to hear that you enjoy working at Criteo. Thank YOU for being an important part of what makes our culture so great! As an evolving company, we keep trying to better ourselves so please if there are ever things that you think we should be changing or improving, you know that you can always reach out to your manager or People experience partner.

Explore other reviews about Criteo

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Great environment, great people to work with

Cons

Need to go back to office

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Criteo Response
5d
We're thrilled to receive such positive feedback and to know that you've found a place where you can grow and thrive at Criteo. Thank you for sharing and for your trust all these years. It's great to have you on the team!
2.0
Jan 31, 2026
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Smart, hardworking people at the individual contributor level (many of whom are now gone). Little micro-managing, but that’s because everyone’s bandwidth is near 0

Cons

Post–new CEO, the company has descended into complete chaos. There is no transparency around decisions that impact teams and roles. There have been consistent strategy, personnel, and supplier changes with no explanation, accountability, or follow-through. Cons, continued: Employee input and performance do not matter. Decisions feel driven by appeasing BoD and optics rather than results, input and reality. The culture has become a corporate hellscape of: Endless reorganizations with no clear rationale, including layoffs with no reasoning Vague all-hands meetings that avoid real issues, even when directly asked A massive disconnect between the C-suite and day-to-day reality Eroded trust and growing position insecurity Middle managers incentivized to prioritize managing up & executive optics over team advocacy “Return to Office” policy put in place when promised a “Work from Anywhere” position, where the RTO policy differs across employees’ location Little to no growth opportunities despite high performance Under-market average compensation that was justified by locale, “Work from Anywhere”, and flexibility — which was recently rolled back A clear favoritism to those that “talk the talk” vs “performance with numbers”

10
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