Starbucks reviews

3.5

56% would recommend to a friend

(85,210 total reviews)
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Brian Niccol

31% approve of CEO

40% positive business outlook

Starbucks has an employee rating of 3.5 out of 5 stars, based on 85,210 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Starbucks employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Restauration industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

85K reviews
1.0
Jul 8, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Extremely good work life balance, very little expectation for delivery and the general pace of life is incredibly slow, as most people "review and assess" things for many days before any kind of action is taken. Even the most basic items and deliverables take many months.

Cons

Extremely toxic political and hierarchical structure that has to correlation to real world skill, the corporate world at it's finest. From the most Senior Management downwards, the only way to obtain seniority and respect within Starbucks is to sit on the same chair for years on end and place an obedient smile on your face. One of the most unskilled and inefficient technology departments anywhere in the world, they would struggle to successfully deliver the new company blog. Trust is placed in the loudest voices instead and no one has any real understanding of quality over quantity, the result being complete mayhem to anyone who is truly good at what they do. Every single thing is over-engineered, extremely poorly thought through, 10 times more expensive than it should ever be, and everyone around in the tech department has no reason to take such a career up in the first place, they are shockingly bad and that seems to be the status quo. People constantly get fired at the behest of seniors for taking on simple arguments, and that is the way of Starbucks, fire the people who disagree with you, keep around obedient staff who's so astonishingly unskilled and clueless they would rival the bureaucracy of any government in the world, and the same story seems to be consistent through multiple departments of the caffeine driven behemoth. They do not hire quality, they have no idea how to recruit talent, it's merely the portrayal of the proverbial "the blind leading the blind", to a degree rarely seen in this world. If you are junior in terms of real skills but senior in how you perceive yourself and you have a mortgage to pay, Starbucks is engineering heaven.

1.0
Sep 18, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

You can get your degree through Arizona State University while working there (but you'll never have enough mental or emotional energy to put towards attaining a degree while employed at Sbux) They technically provide IVF assistance, but they'll burn you out long before you have the chance to take advantage of it (and you also will be working paycheck to paycheck even as a manager, so you won't be able to afford to have a baby anyway).

Cons

It now makes me disgusted to hear Starbucks coined as a "progressive" company. They screw you over slightly less than other companies, and they will constantly pat themselves on the back for being "an incredible, people-focused, benefits-giving place to work." The reality is that they will work you to death and tell you that you have the power to do more. If you care about the supervisors under you, if you care about the baristas under you, this job will make you sick with burnout in order to try and do right by your people, while Starbucks corporate continues to raise benchmarks to unattainable levels and slash "bonuses" year after year. My store was the second-highest performing in the area, and my quarterly bonuses were a laughable $400 (not even enough to cover gas money for a single month of commuting).

1.0
Dec 19, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Most of the people that work at the corporate office are very warm and accommodating. Whenever there's a problem, you can guarantee that many of your fellow Partners will be ready and willing to help you fix it. The culture is very consensus- driven, so everyone gets a say before decisions are made, which is an extremely validating aspect of the company that you won't find at many corporations that are of the same size and respectability.

Cons

There is an overwhelming amount of bureaucracy at the senior level. Strides have been made to decrease the effect of this issue on the company, but it will take a lot of time as well as a massive overhaul of the company's core values/priorities to address this issue. For instance, I didn't have computer for almost a month and it took the intervention of a VP to get the ball rolling. That's unacceptable--VPs and senior directors should not be bothered with issues such as this. Again, the company not only needs a massive overhaul from the top-down, but the bottom-up as well. HR/PRO is absolute GARBAGE. Very few of the people in this department are qualified to do what their job responsibilities entail. In my case, I was told a week before my job started that I was being moved to an entirely different team/position that I was not qualified for. Consequently, I was not equipped with the tools I needed to do the new job that I was given and was forced to leave my position at Starbucks within 5 months. I also reached out to PRO about a time sensitive issue regarding my housing situation and it took them over a week and half to respond to tell me they could not do anything. Do not expect to get any help out of PRO if you have a legitimate issue such as your housing or the state of your career because they will not be helpful. Lastly, while Starbucks promotes a culture of "inclusion and diversity", it is seriously lacking in true diversity or inclusion--especially in the technology department. It was extremely disorienting to be the only person of my race and gender on my team as well entire department. The fact that my on-boarding experience was so poorly handled in comparison to my peers only illuminates to me that inclusion and diversity are not a real priority for the company. If you are a young woman or person of color in the tech industry, please do your research before considering a becoming a part of this company.

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