Pros
- Shazam is a well known, global brand which users tend to love. Looks impressive on the CV. - Benefits and pay are reasonable, with some nice extra little perks like catered lunch on Fridays, free drinks a couple of times a month, games area. - People are generally friendly, although not the most social bunch in the world. - A reasonable amount of autonomy and ability to implement ideas in the department I'd worked in. - App is always changing (although not always for the better) so always lots to adapt to and learn.
Cons
- While the perks were fine, I've definitely had better elsewhere, in particular with the social side of things. - HR is a disaster. I worked there for over a year and there was no written sickness policy for the entire period. if you asked your manager or HR, you'd be told that the lawyers were still writing it. Your contact would tell you to refer to your Employee Handbook, which no longer existed. For an established name like Shazam to have no written sickness policy to protect their employees is a disgrace and meant that they made stuff up as they saw fit. - I saw people in probation made to feel bad for attending hospital appointments even when told weeks in advance and when they were in lots of pain. if you work at Shazam, pray that you never get seriously ill because I have never worked anywhere where people were so scared of getting sick. - Head of HR in London is unapproachable, lacking in empathy, and makes judgements based upon who her favourite people are. - Some of the managers are so loud and egotistic that speaking to them is like banging your head against a brick wall. They know best and that is that, no matter how many other people may say otherwise. - Constantly ignoring what users want and instead putting so much time and effort into things they never asked for and never used once implemented (see - Visual Shazam). - A steady stream of redundancies. Struggling to cope financially in a world where paid music downloads are plummeting. You would go in one day and find an entire team suddenly gone. Focus seemed to be mostly on how many more adverts they could squeeze into the app when I left.
