What it does: Provide content and live streaming service.
Mission: To empower everyone to discover, share, and celebrate the stories that connect us.”
Size and presence: 1.001 to 5.001 employees.
Best known for: Walt Disney’s subsidiary company, one of the giant streaming services in the world.
The good bits: Fun working environment. Great deal benefit packages. Flexible working arrangement.
The not-so-good-bits: Some changes in management and workforce that need adjusting after Disney took over.
Before Hulu launched for public access in 2008, Hulu was gone through beta testing during its founding period. Hulu was originally created as a joint venture between Comcast’s NBC Universal and News Corporation (FOX & 20th Century Fox), with Providence Equity Partner as an investor. Hulu’s original purpose was to aggregate and air each party’s recent episodes of series from their own network. Later, Walt Disney joined Hulu through its subsidiary, ABC, and share some of its TV shows (ABC, ESPN, & Disney Channel) and feature films.
Disney later would own the majority of Hulu’s ownership by acquiring 21st Century Fox, the company also bought WarnerMedia’s share in Hulu, and in 2024, they will also buy Comcast’s share, making them the sole owner of Hulu.
Aside from providing its partners’ content, Hulu also streamed its own original content. Hulu also developing another subscription package, named Hulu + Live TV, which provides content from Hulu original, Hulu’s partners, and live TV streaming from numerous channels and TV networks. In a recent development, Hulu now has 45,6 million subscribers. Its headquarter is located in Santa Monica, California.
Hulu and Disney are now slowly and continuously integrated, both in management and working culture terms, as Disney took the majority of ownership. Some current employees testified to having a fun working environment, good and smart co-workers, flexible working arrangements, and an autonomous working style. Since the company provides a streaming platform with a lot of entertainment content, it is creatively fulfilling for some. However, it also has a challenging period of time for some roles, especially if there’s a technical issue, as expected from a company where technology is heavily used in its core business.
Students or college graduates who wish to join the company’s internship may enrol in Disney’s college program. However, the company set an eligibility requirement for applicants.
For full-time positions for recent graduates, applicants will find any information about the job opening on its website, though some current and former applicants claimed to apply through recruiters or by referral. The process consists of three rounds of interviews. Phone screening interview, interview with the hiring manager, and group panel interview. Some roles require a presentation and skill test. The duration of the whole process is varying from a week to a month.
Hulu’s career prospects aligned with Disney’s. The company divided career paths into several areas, however, as Hulu is Disney’s streaming service’s subsidiary, the prospects will mainly focus on; business support, marketing & sales, creatives, production & entertainment, innovation, technology, and sciences, and finance, data, and analytics.
Hulu is a good place to start for graduates who want to build up their careers in communication, marketing & digital media, research and development, data science & analytics, graphic designs, animation & visual effects, software engineering, creatives, and many more. The company also offers internship programs for college students and graduates, which are still aligned with Disney, and will fall into Disney streaming areas.
Hulu offers paid internships. And according to Disney, there will be weekly payment options for all employees. The salaries are ranging from $40.000 up to $121.000 annually depending on roles and departments. In hourly counts, interns get paid from $8 to $58. Advertising, marketing, ad operations, and accountant interns may receive $8 up to $28 hourly. In comparison, software developer and software engineer interns may receive $45 up to $56 hourly. A media planner receives $26 hourly, while UX research and UI/UX design interns receive $39 up to $49 hourly.
Salaries for full-time employees are higher. For example, a communication specialist receives $76.000, a sales planner receives $75.000, an assistant editor receives $82.000, and a chief financial officer receives $88.000 annually. While a data scientist receives $170.000, a software engineer receives $170.000, a software developer receives $166.000, and a product designer receives $142.000 annually.
Hulu’s social activities are collected and done in unison with its major stock owner, Walt Disney.
On 1 December 2021, Hulu posted a documentary titled ‘Astroworld: Concert From Hell’, a 50 minutes special news reported and produced by ABC local news affiliate. The concert in mention, Astroworld, involved Travis Scott and his co-performer, Drake, and killed 10 concert attendees. The content was uploaded weeks after the deadly surge crowd happened, the police had not even finished the investigation at that moment. The content immediately stirred a negative backlash from the public, who mainly protested and criticized Hulu on Twitter for being insensitive to the family members who were still mourning the loss of the deceased. The backlash resulted in Hulu removing the content.