Vantaggi
The company provided great benefits, such as gym reimbursement, home office reimbursement during COVID, team building budget, free lunches and snacks every day, Christmas and summer parties (except for this year), travel ticket. Thanks to German law it was also possible to call in sick without a doctor's note on a first day (tho that is on the system, not the company). Last year the annual leave days were raised to 30 vacation days. Some level of employee development structure was in place, although in practice it was a farce.
Svantaggi
Micromanagement, tracking of people (which did not go through in Berlin), team leaders and managers without any background or people skills -- people who used to be regular employees and got promoted without any training or checks if they fit in with the team. Lack of focused business ideas -- in 2024 TikTok laid off people globally in order to streamline business operations and introduce new projects and after lay offs were over said projects were never introduced and plans were changed. "Fast paced environment" of a "start up" is a lie, this is nothing but a mess upon mess. Upon joining 3 years ago I was told people move up quickly and that there were great chances for development and growth. 3 years later I was in the same position without any prospects for anything better or different, because there was no development happening in Berlin.