Zillow Employee Review

Current Employee – been working at Zillow

Pros – Great people whom you can trust to do their job well, great opportunity in an industry that can use innovation, and strong shared sense of mission to fulfill consumer needs. I feel lucky to work with this quality of colleagues on this kind of business opportunity with this redeeming a project.

One other thing -- transparency on strategy and performance to the whole company. This company is pretty unique in the degree to which everyone can know what's going on and how we're doing.

Cons – Things move fast -- you have to be comfortable living with the foot on the gas. As start-ups go, this is run as a survivable business. We're not on a forced march to IPO, leaving bodies along the path -- we have fun, people can take vacations. The people need to work long hours with some regularity, as we ship a lot of stuff, but certainly not every day.

The culture is straightforward, which can feel blunt and even harsh. Personally, I appreciate a culture where everyone (at every rung of the ladder) can say what they think -- as long as they back it up with data or rationale. There is little beating around the bush, which means things get done faster. Sometimes the bluntness involves less tact than it could, but hey this is a tech company.

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on developing mid managers, and helping mid managers train and develop their reports. We have smart people in some positions without a lot of management experience. Sometimes execs assume that smart people can automatically manage well. Some execs could also think about managing people more, not just projects and features. We do have some good execs on this front, but not all.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend