LAIKA Reviews

Don't believe these positive reviews. HR encourages new hires to write them when they are onboarded. CEO: Worked there a little over a year and saw Travis Knight about once during my entire tenure there. Even though he claims to be heavily involved in the studio projects. When a new portion of the dialogue studio was made for him he claimed it was big enough to "have a Turkish three-way" in there. Stay classy TK. Don't know why people look up to him here when he said he would always be involved with LAIKA and then the next day the entire company finds out he's working on Bumblebee through the tabloids. But hey I guess you can't worry about criticism when you're never in the studio. Culture: One of the most toxic work environments I've ever worked in. Extremely cliquey and morale was at an all time low. If you want a promotion make sure you carry around enough chapstick to kiss their butts. Even then, the lead media photographer has been working overtime for about three years now and was laughed out of the coordinators office after asking for a raise. Call-out culture is embraced here instead of having civil dialogue. Felt constant tension while working here including from my boss. Her method was to teach me something once and if I asked again she would berate me. Coworkers would simply stare at me if I asked for help. I believe my manager secretly told them to not help me if I asked for it. Since upper management is not held accountable here I was frequently the target of scapegoating by her. The company keeps labor cheap by hiring kids straight out of college to be on the RPQA team. If you are being brought on as a part of them don't expect to keep your job. Outlook: As bleak as it gets. Hence why they are switching to live action now. During my time there, I was getting paid a measly wage. Even though I was wearing the hats of 5 different departments. In interviews they will tell you maybe only about 25% of the duties that you're actually doing. I was overworked and underpaid. Don't take it from just me but from all the others that are saying the same thing. I was offered the chance to interview for another position here and I turned it down. They tried to entice me by offering me "overtime" to work so I could earn some extra money. Fat chance. One of the worst jobs I've ever had and unless they make some serious changes to how they operate it will continue to be the cancerous tumor in the animation industry. Ask others who were laid off before you decide to apply. I still have friends who work there and they tell me it's the same old crappy place. After I saw Coraline it used to be my dream to work here, but it ended up being a nightmare.

No chance of advancement or pay raises, only 1.5% cost of living raise a year. The Portland area cost of living has risen drastically in the last 3 or 4 years, so the longer your employed with Laika, the less your actually making. Due to a lack of vision and poor management, very little chance of the company achieving any success in making movies. Travis Knight has some artist talent but no business sense and extremely disconnected from the employees. Very little respect or encouragement from management. Suggestions to improve production are usually meet with resentment due to managements lack of confidence and leadership skills. After almost 10 years with the company, morale was becoming unbearable and the struggles trying to produce film 5 are to the point of ridiculous.