Not Quite What I Expected - AV Engineer Blizzard Entertainment Employee Review

2.0
17 Dec 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The everyday employees at Blizzard Entertainment are fantastic people to work with. They work hard and play hard. The one thing that kept me here was the people. Alot of fun times were had here.

Cons

Management needs some work. They don't really know, or care to know, what projects are happening at the lower levels of the company. This causes frustrations at the lower level, as those workers are worked extremally hard for long periods of time and are sometimes not doing it on the clock. As there is just too much to do with no time to do it all. I knew quite a few people, myself included, who worked 60+ hours a week( only reporting 42-45 hours) with no help or cares in sight from upper management. The workers did it because they love their job and wanted to help their teams. Management only wanted to get more and more done with less people and no extra headcount. Their pay was lower than other companies are paying. They bank on the fact that people want to work at Blizzard. For any sort of advancement in the company you have to compete and be compared to your peers. Sometimes having to look for people from different disciplines entirely if there are no others in your realm of practice. This causes some people who performed well, to be lowered in their evaluation because HR only allows so many of each of the higher ratings. This was brutal on some teams where everyone was overachieving. Your evaluation also effects your profit sharing and your annual increase, so even if you perform at a high level, if your whole team does as well, you would likely be lowered to, "meets expectations" or lower in some areas. All due to their ranking system being built to compete against your teammates for any sort of meaningful increase or promotion.

Explore other reviews about Blizzard Entertainment

5.0
2 Jun 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Really great people, best and kindest in the business

Cons

Compensation is on lower side

2.0
23 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Depending on the team, you get to work with some great people. - Company events are fun and make you temporarily forget that you're still in a corporate environment. - You're near the games being released.

Cons

On the surface, the company talks a big game about being structured and performance-driven. In reality, it feels pretty chaotic once you’re actually in it. Expectations aren’t clearly defined, and what “success” looks like seems to shift depending on the week or who you’re talking to. You end up spending more time managing optics and trying to stay aligned with moving targets than actually doing solid engineering work. What makes it worse is how management handles team dynamics. Toxic behavior doesn’t really get addressed — if anything, it sometimes feels like it’s enabled. Feedback can feel very one-sided, and when you raise concerns, they’re not always taken seriously or represented fairly. There are definitely moments where the narrative about your performance doesn’t match the reality of what you’re actually doing day to day, which slowly kills trust. At a minimum, leadership needs to get better at clear communication, setting stable and objective expectations, and actually supporting both engineers and managers. Without that, even strong teams start to feel dysfunctional. Compensation doesn’t make up for it either. It often feels like decisions are driven by cost-cutting rather than recognizing real impact, which makes the whole environment feel more transactional than motivating. Overall, I wouldn’t recommend this place in its current state, especially if you’re an experienced professional looking for a stable, well-run role.

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