Cool company, great product, not great pay, terrible management - Software Engineer Rockstar Games Employee Review

3.0
May 5, 2025
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Working on industry defining games at a recognizable company known for hits is a fun and rewarding experience. Working out of SoHo and being around many talented and passionate people will teach you so much for your career, and you'll make some great friends as well.

Cons

Terrible management, this is to be expected though when you're paying people ~50k less than what they could be making at any other company. Very little oversight on management, I only recommend taking the job if you know for sure that your manager has good leadership experience and advocates for their developers (this exists at the company, but its a total crapshoot). Some managers have been grandfathered into the company from other positions completely foreign to the people they manage, while others are essentially geniuses who want to be at the company because they're the best at what they do. Highly recommend understanding which of those two your manager is before accepting a position. Rockstar is more of an entertainment company than a technology company, and hires people who can do the job for the least amount of money rather than good talent that wouldn't accept comp so low.

Explore other reviews about Rockstar Games

5.0
Apr 30, 2026
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Innovation and technology is the best

Cons

Hectic days and crunching is bad

2
2.0
Jun 26, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

-The main pros of working here are there are many talented folks who are passionate about what they do. -Free lunch and work events were always pretty fun - A once in a lifetime opportunity to work on the biggest games of all time.

Cons

Rockstar takes advantage of the passionate people they have working for them. They use the brand as an excuse to not treat their employees with any dignity or respect. It's also worth mentioning that microagressions and misogyny is a bigger problem than what's being reported here. There were many times where I felt like my voice wasn't heard because of it. Leadership is also a the source of a lot of friction. Many of them are out of touch and let people who have worked their for a long time get away with abusing their direct reports and other lower on the totum pole colleagues. There are people who work here that have been reportedly for unprofessional behavior multiple times but don't receive any serious pushback from leadership. It's a very cliquey, fear based environment masked behind a fake sense of a forward thinking company. There's a lot of information withheld from people who are directly impacted by it, which eventually caused me to mistrust the company and leadership. I have mixed feelings because I enjoyed working on the games and there are many talent people who are being held back by a company that refuses to think differently.

1
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