Ibotta

Senior leadership doesn't care about employees There are still some good people left. I've had good managers since I've started. Other engineers are generally smart, kind, and happy to pair or help with tricky tasks. Senior leadership doesn't care about feedback from employees and doesn't seem to care about making us feel valued. Internal communication surrounding the new attendance policy (mandatory in-office TWR) has been condescending, rude, distrustful, and dismissive. Since becoming a public company in 2024, almost all of the extra perks have disappeared in the pursuit of profit. But the stock price has tanked since the IPO, and the company is desperately spending millions on stock buy backs to keep it afloat.

Great people but becoming more corporate getting more corproate, leadership a bit chaotic

Great people, but becoming high-pressure and negative environment Return to office is stressing out all the people who have been around ibotta for 5 or more years, people who have the most context on the product that we sell. It feels like ibotta is in a high-pressure post IPO period, trying to thin its people out by slowly taking away benefits. A few years ago it felt like there was some great hype around our products (IPN, Walmart), but now the hype feels fake around leadership. Standups have gotten really boring and I don't feel like any ICs and lower-level managers are actually excited about projects. The office used to be friendly and fun without the feeling of 'you better get stuff done now!', but now it feels like few people smile and are friendly anymore. Same people, but just under lots more pressure to perform. The 'common good' of teams working together is deteriorating a little bit. It feels like people don't want to collaborate and help out as much as they used to.

They started firing people for no reason just to start from scratch again. There is completely dysfunction everywhere, from processes all the way down to billing.

- Top‑down, homogenous engineering leadership — the department was led in a way that rewarded alignment over critical thinking. Engineers who approached problems differently or challenged assumptions were often sidelined, which limited creativity and slowed real progress. - Consensus‑driven to a fault — decisions frequently required broad agreement even when speed, ownership, or technical judgment should have led. This created a culture where “doing things the same way” mattered more than solving problems effectively. - Lack of meaningful technical autonomy — teams were encouraged to follow a single preferred style of thinking and execution, which stifled innovation and made it difficult to bring diverse engineering perspectives to the table. - Misallocation of engineering effort — significant time was spent on initiatives that didn’t deliver value. A notable example was a unit‑testing dashboard built for a partner that was never used, consuming substantial engineering hours simply because it was a leadership pet project. - Process over outcomes — too many initiatives were pursued for the sake of activity rather than impact, leading to churn, frustration, and a sense that engineering time wasn’t being respected. - Unprofessional executive tone — the CEO’s communication style in all‑hands and leadership meetings was frequently marked by profanity and ego‑driven declarations. For someone with a background that includes clerking for the Supreme Court, the lack of professionalism was surprising and often set the wrong tone for the organization. - Vision driven more by bravado than strategy — major initiatives were sometimes justified with unrealistic claims rather than data. A memorable example was the assertion that sending Ibotta to the Cannes Film Festival would generate a “50x ROI,” which reflected more enthusiasm than grounded business reasoning. - Top‑down influence on culture — the CEO’s style amplified a culture where bold statements were valued over thoughtful execution, contributing to misaligned priorities and inconsistent strategic focus.