Orbitz Worldwide – “I absolutely love working at Orbitz”

Pros

They seem to be very employee-friendly. I can work at home or take time of virtually any time I need. Technical managers are all very competent. I think compensation is very fair, benefits above average. Location is excellent, in the same building as the train station.

The company is mostly a java shop but there are pockets of activity in other languages, and management seems very open to suggestions. There are lots of opportunities to learn and try new things.

Cons

I don't have admin rights to my own workstation, which is a first for me. I think Orbitz is suffering from some poor technical decisions made in the past. There needs to be a bigger focus on teams sharing a common framework for software development. Instead of fixing the standard framework, some teams will simply strike off on their own using different versions of java or creating non-standard build steps to meet their needs.

Advice to Senior Management

Senior management should work a little harder to foster a culture of individual accountability in the engineering community. Too many software developers push code out without adequate testing prior to the QA cycle. Software needs to be of hire quality before test, rather than waiting for the QA team to find defects.