Just yesterday, Netflix ($NFLX) announced that it added 9 million new subscribers at the end of 2018, beating expectations of 7.6 million new subscribers. That's good news for the company. It now has 139 million subscribers globally and expects to add another 8.9 million by the end of March.
But then news came that the service would be raising subscription prices, and members groaned. On top of that, analysts noted that growth in the US has slowed as the market becomes saturated with streaming services.
And then it was reported that sales fell slightly short of expectations, causing Wall Street to pause for a moment and consider whether or not Netflix is overweight.
A quick look at hiring trends at the company show that the company may be feeling the hangover of a hiring binge.
Consider this fact: at this moment last year, Netflix was hiring 455 people across 24 job categories. Today, it's hiring 564 people across 84 categories.
The two years' categories and listings per category, taken from January 15, 2018 and January 15, 2019, respectively, are shown below.
|
Job Categories (2018) |
Listings |
Job Categories (2019) |
Listings |
|---|---|---|---|
|
Marketing |
64 |
Publicity |
32 |
|
Public Relations |
51 |
Content Engineering Core |
30 |
|
Content |
42 |
Creative Marketing Production |
27 |
|
Content Engineering |
32 |
Content Legal |
26 |
|
Cloud Platform Engineering |
30 |
Studio Finance |
25 |
|
Product Management |
30 |
Finance Core |
24 |
|
Legal |
30 |
Data Engineering and Infrastructure |
16 |
|
Science and Analytics |
24 |
Talent Acquisition |
12 |
|
Financial Planning and Analysis |
21 |
Post Management |
12 |
|
Finance |
21 |
Regional Marketing |
12 |
|
Product Engineering |
20 |
Brand and Editorial Marketing |
11 |
|
Data Engineering and Infrastructure |
16 |
Ecosystem Engineering |
10 |
|
Partner Ecosystem |
15 |
Employee Technology |
10 |
|
User Interface Engineering |
14 |
Studio Technology |
9 |
|
Human Resources |
11 |
VFX |
9 |
|
Streaming Client |
10 |
Customer Service |
9 |
|
Content Delivery |
7 |
User Interface Engineering |
9 |
|
Content Operations |
6 |
Product Management Core |
9 |
|
Employee Technology |
4 |
Platform Engineering |
9 |
|
Customer Service |
4 |
Studio Management |
9 |
|
Customer Service Administration |
1 |
Post Partnerships & Integration |
8 |
|
Business Development |
1 |
Post Operations |
8 |
|
Globalization |
1 |
Product Creative Editorial |
8 |
|
Product Creative Operations |
8 |
||
|
Creative Tech & Infrastructure |
8 |
||
|
Product Engineering Core |
8 |
||
|
Content FP&A |
8 |
||
|
Customer Service Administration |
7 |
||
|
Creative Marketing |
7 |
||
|
Product Creative Globalization |
7 |
||
|
Product Creative Producers |
7 |
||
|
Facilities Operations and Real Estate |
7 |
||
|
Marketing Planning and Analysis |
6 |
||
|
Open Connect Engineering |
6 |
||
|
APAC Content |
6 |
||
|
HR Business Partner |
6 |
||
|
Marketing Tech Engineering |
6 |
||
|
Business Development |
6 |
||
|
Payments |
5 |
||
|
Marketing Core |
5 |
||
|
Legal Core |
5 |
||
|
Safety & Security |
5 |
||
|
Corporate FP&A |
5 |
||
|
Science and Analytics Core |
5 |
||
|
Product Creative Studio |
5 |
||
|
Partner Ecosystem Core |
4 |
||
|
Partner Marketing |
4 |
||
|
Streaming Client |
4 |
||
|
Physical Production Core |
4 |
||
|
Studio Engineering |
4 |
||
|
Corporate Communications |
4 |
||
|
Personalization Engineering |
4 |
||
|
Human Resources Core |
4 |
||
|
Product Design |
4 |
||
|
Consumer Products |
3 |
||
|
Business Development, Marketing and Product Legal |
3 |
||
|
International Dubbing |
3 |
||
|
Litigation and Regulatory Affairs |
3 |
||
|
Corporate Legal |
3 |
||
|
Edge Engineering |
3 |
||
|
Talent |
3 |
||
|
Operations Leadership |
3 |
||
|
Productivity Engineering |
3 |
||
|
Workforce Management |
2 |
||
|
Awards |
2 |
||
|
Systems & Innovations |
2 |
||
|
Animation |
2 |
||
|
Information Security |
2 |
||
|
Programmatic Marketing |
2 |
||
|
Product Creative Core |
2 |
||
|
Content Acquisition Core |
1 |
||
|
Public Policy |
1 |
||
|
Streaming Delivery |
1 |
||
|
International Originals Production |
1 |
||
|
Original Series Production |
1 |
||
|
Content Marketing S&A |
1 |
||
|
Aviation |
1 |
||
|
Docs, Comedies, Unscripted & Talk Production |
1 |
||
|
Production Tax |
1 |
||
|
Kids & Family Content |
1 |
||
|
Business Affairs - Original Series Docs & Stand Up |
1 |
||
|
Consumer Insights Marketing |
1 |
||
|
Major Studio Licensing |
1 |
At first glance, it looks normal: any company in the throes of a global growth marathon like Netflix would want to diversify and set itself up to scale. So it's not a huge surprise that job categories like "Marketing" would split into multiple categories. But can it be overly complicated in how it labels jobs and expand too much?
Netflix's "Marketing" category is now split into "Creative Marketing Production", "Regional Marketing", "Brand and Editorial Marketing", "Creative Marketing", "Marketing Planning and Analysis", "Marketing Tech Engineering", "Marketing Core", "Partner Marketing", "Programmatic Marketing", "Content Marketing S&A", and "Consumer Insights Marketing".
And that diversification of hiring taxonomy occurred in just the last year.
Netflix hiring has been consistently upbeat with only a slight stall in terms of daily open positions as of late.
That said, Netflix slowed new job listings at the beginning of the year in 2018, so this lull shouldn't be cause for alarm.
But given the streaming market's increasing saturation — new services are expected in 2019 from Apple, Disney, DC, Walmart, and Warner/HBO — one has to ask is Netflix is setting itself up properly not just for scalability and expansion, but also to be able to compete. As always, we'll keep our eyes on the numbers.