Expedia Reviews in Seattle, WA Area

Pros

If you want to work hard and have good ideas it's a place you can still impact.

Cons

Major leadership turn over some people promoted beyond capablity at the sr director level.

Advice to Senior Management

Support groups need to build right size solutions.

Pros

Fast pace environment
Dedicated people
Reasonable benifits
Good a oiling the squeaky wheel

Cons

A lot of people have been at Expedia a long time - that ends up limiting what is possible; Expedia ends up doing a lot of dump things. Long time Expedia people thing they are the same as Google, or Amazon, or Facebook - they need to be practical; what gets built vs bought at Expedia is laughable.

Application architecture and governanace is horible - every group does it differently.

Advice to Senior Management

Make yourself a reasonable aquasition candidate for a company that has development and operations figured out.

Pros

Travel benefits, Fitness Reimbursement, Diversified business model which keeps everything challenging, always changing, Option to work from home, overall good people.

Cons

Due to the fact that it is a large company, there are definitely some hoops to jump through in order to get things done.

Advice to Senior Management

In order for Expedia to be successful, I think the leadership of Expedia needs to focus not only on customer retention but on employee retention. Also, don't over complicate.

Pros

Great people; industry leader; world-wide presence; fun product (vacation/adventures)

Cons

Relentlessly hectic pace; under-resourced; shifting priorities

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to lead by example. Stop bringing in "celebrity execs" from outside and promote from within. Our best leaders have come up through the ranks.

Pros

Work/life balance is a priority
Fun and engaging culture

Cons

No stock options for all employees

Pros

Nice people, decent pay, good benefits, nice building in down-town Bellevue with lots of good restaurants around, quite a bit of "morale budget" get spent.

Cons

Right now (2011) it seems that Expedia as a whole (meaning many brands under Expedia Inc.) is struggling with direction and leadership. I believe Expedia will likely be a good place to work again in the future but right now, most people that I know would like to leave due to massive re-orgs, lack of leadership and lack of company direction. However, most people I know also feel that Expedia has good things to offer employees and would consider working there again in the future after the dust settles.

Cons: Major leadership issues that trickle down to the lowest levels. Terrible cubicles with zero privacy.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire strong leaders. Get some direction and communicate it to all levels of employees so that everyone understands common goals and objectives.

Pros

-Smart and passionate co-workers
-Good benefits
-Opportunities to move within the company to other parts of the world
-Access to travel deals

Cons

-Lack of commitment
-Constantly changing priorities
-Lack of mangers with any leadership or people skills
-A burn and churn approach to employees

Advice to Senior Management

Take better care of your employees. To often folks are promoted to management positions and do not have the skills to manage people. So much institutional knowledge is lost because employees feel unappreciated and are poorly treated. Expedia has lost millions and millions of dollars due to employee turnover. It is a shame.

Pros

Expedia revolutionized travel and then fell behind. Expedia lost Web 2.0. We're now aiming to win the next phase with Expedia 3.0 - revolutionizing travel again. The current leadership team has set the bar high and everyone is heading in the same direction - that's refreshing and inspiring.

Cons

It took too long to realize we needed a new technology platform.

Pros

Good place to work, good culture, nice people

Cons

Few opportunities for promotion, poor stock/equity compensation, fairly low compensation

Pros

Exposure to cutting edge technologies. No bureaucracy...can get things done without a lot of consensus.

Cons

Not all teams equal. My leadership expects long days. I seldom leave before 7 pm and in at 8 am. Lack of strategy and architecture direction. Lack of collaboration acrosss VP groups.

Advice to Senior Management

Set strategy across technology...a lot of redundancy and competing efforts limit progress at times.