Expedia Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

Lotsof super smart passionate people. Forward thinking technology environment. Good business and technology relationships.

Cons

Too much travel. Too many reorgs and restructures. They stopped giving out stock options and pay increases stalled.

Pros

Nice product: you get to send people on holiday
Generally competent colleagues
International team

Cons

Tortuous organisation structure: impossible to get decisions made
Lack of clear strategy. Lots of vision, but no clarity about what not to do.
Weak tech, and weak understanding of tech amongst leadership team.

Advice to Senior Management

Make some clear decisions about what's not going to be done.
Put in place an organisation structure that expedites (!) decision making: make the flow from customer requirements to change far slicker.
Hire leadership who understand tech.

Pros

- good life / work balance
- management communicates well with employees
- great location / building
- smart people all around

Cons

- opportunities for advancement low, even though there is a large potential for this with a global company like Expedia
- strategy always is more responsive in the competitive field, as opposed to coming up with new, refreshing ideas
- technology is very outdated and difficult to upgrade, it feels like we are always one step behind

Advice to Senior Management

- create programs to help employees understand future opportunities, sense of community and commitment to the company, all of which are lacking
- invest more in HR to do these things
- coordinate strategies between business units

Pros

Good benefits and strong respect of personal vs. professional life.

Cons

Very political. Stron american managment style.

Advice to Senior Management

More transparency

Pros

Good workplace, good salary package, smart people, very capable senior management

Cons

Very very difficult to move across departments

Advice to Senior Management

Trust more in the people potential rather than just what is their prior work experience in order to allow them to move within the company rather than leaving after a few years

Pros

Loads of travel
Autonomy
Great office environment and colleagues
Pay is better than most travel companies (But less than tech companies)

Cons

Work hours can be long, staff expected to work late if required and weekends if necessary
Remuneration is occasionally unequal (some staff get share options, some don't)

Advice to Senior Management

Ensure remuneration is equal across staff on the same grades. when I was there tech staff got large share allocations, private label staff and supply contracting staff didn't.
Deal with problems before they escalate. In the sales based role I was in, several times it got to September before we got annual targets.

Pros

Smart people. Still a lot of people around who are "get 'er done" types.

Cons

Political. HR plays too large a role in management decision making.

Advice to Senior Management

Build entrepreneurial spirit upon which Expedia was founded and seems to be getting lost.

Pros

Travel is an energizing sector -- every day your helping people plan a holiday!
Plenty of opportunities globally within the larger group of companies.
Expedia attracts smart people with whom there are many to work.
I've been given loads of opportunity to grow and learn with the organization but you really have to drive this yourself.

Cons

Heavy on process and overhead. It feels like it takes longer than it should to get things done.
Not a particularly innovative organization. The same ideas seem to be rehashed.
Recent organization changes have overcentralized decision making.

Advice to Senior Management

Find a way to carve room for some more risky endeavours.
Focus on minimizing process and execution overhead.
Try to push decision making down into the new organization.

Pros

Very interesting and intelligent people that are great both inside and outside of the workplace. Interesting industry in a rapidly changing environment that means you're constantly challenged. Stable and profitable company that is going in the right direction.

Cons

Unclear why some people are in their leadership positions, although this has improved after the recent re-organization. Slim hierarachy is a good thing, but doesn't leave very much room for upward mobility.

Advice to Senior Management

Be aware of the people actually doing the work and driving projects forward instead of promoting the people that bark the loudest or know which political circles to be in.

Pros

Worked with some of the smartest people I've met in a great environment. People at Expedia have a rea; passion for travel the Expedia business. Many folks love working there and I was one of them.

Cons

It can be tough to get the simplest of projects through the pipeline. With old platforms slowing dev down and too many overall strategies to enables teams to deliver iterative improvements progress and delivery can be slooooow

Advice to Senior Management

Take ownership of the big and the small problems and call them out for everyone to see, so everyone can work on them. Start delivering smaller improvements much more frequently and take lots of small steps to improve the bigger picture so all the great, simple ideas don't get lost.