Does Refinery29 pay their employees well?

According to anonymously submitted Glassdoor reviews, Refinery29 employees rate their compensation and benefits as 2.6 out of 5. Find out more about salaries and benefits at Refinery29. This rating has been stable over the past 12 months.

How satisfied are employees working at Refinery29?

40% of Refinery29 employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews . Employees also rated Refinery29 2.9 out of 5 for work life balance, 3.2 for culture and values and 2.5 for career opportunities.

What are the top reviewed jobs at Refinery29?

Intern (9) , Software Engineer (6) , Internship (5) , Writer (5) , Editor (4) , Graphic Designer (4) , Intern - Hourly (4) , Production Assistant (4) , Editorial (3) , Producer (3) , Account Executive (2) , Account Manager (2) , Art Director (2) , Content Writer (2) , Creative Department (2)

What are the pros of working at Refinery29 according to real employee reviews?

"The people are creative and young" ((in 29 reviews)); "The coworkers were the best part of the job." ((in 11 reviews)); "Beautiful office" ((in 6 reviews)); "Office culture is amazing." ((in 6 reviews)); "Very healthy work environment, I have yet to encounter nastiness, back stabbing, aggression" ((in 4 reviews))

What are the cons of working at Refinery29 according to real employee reviews?

"NO work life balance; unsustainable and will burn you out." ((in 12 reviews)); "low pay not in line with the industry or people's experience" ((in 10 reviews)); "Upper management is ignorant of the fact that employees have no work" ((in 9 reviews)); "Which leaves less capable managers in the middle level therefore further negatively affecting non" ((in 8 reviews)); "Hours are long and personnel is under appreciated." ((in 6 reviews))

What are employees saying about Refinery29 layoffs in 2026?

Explore Glassdoor’s employee reviews to understand what current and former employees are saying about Refinery29 layoffs and their outlook for job security at Refinery29 in 2026.

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Refinery29

Refinery29 reviews

3.1

40% would recommend to a friend

(191 total reviews)

Philippe von Borries

35% approve of CEO

18% positive business outlook

Ratings by category

3.4

Diversity & inclusion

3.2

Culture & values

2.9

Work/Life balance

2.7

Senior management

2.6

Compensation and benefits

2.5

Career opportunities

Refinery29 has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 191 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Refinery29 employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Mídia e comunicação industry (3.7 stars).

Ratings by demographic groups

Race / Ethnicity

Gender

Sexual orientation

Disability

Parent or family caregiver

Veteran status

Reviews by job title

191 reviews

4.0

Oct 26, 2016

It's a good place

Editor

Recommend

Business Outlook

Pros

Fun place to work and lots of smart people. Nice events and parties. Lots of different departments doing interesting projects.

Cons

Startup in the sense that hours can be grueling. Communication between departments improved but was spotty or extremely redundant. Salary is industry standard but nothing great.

3.0

Oct 13, 2016

Life At R29

Anonymous employee

Recommend

Business Outlook

Pros

Really smart people, somewhat mission-driven company we all stand behind, innovation

Cons

Lack of growth opportunity, untrained and ineffective managers, conflicting information from the top down

5.0

Oct 1, 2016

Software Engineer

Software engineer

Recommend

Business Outlook

Pros

* Engineering team is very forward thinking. * Utilizing up-to-date technologies on both the front and backend. * Culture encourages learning and enhancing engineers' skill sets. * Employees are very open and transparent. You're always encouraged to ask questions and learn any part of the stack. * Work from home policy is very relaxed. * Company is growing and FAST. * Summers have free iced coffee, kombutcha, and you have half days on Friday. * Lots of fun events with free food and drinks. * Everyone is open to suggestions and you can easily have an affect on the tech stack even as a junior employee. * Friday all-hands meetings provides useful department updates, presentations, and Q&A with upper management.

Cons

* Portion of the site runs off a legacy codebase of which they're constantly working to deprecate

Viewing 133 - 135 of 191 Reviews

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