Pros

Collaborative, energizing environment. Sound management. Solid business plan. There are no slackers, or if so, they don't last long. The expectation is that everyone contributes, and everyone does. It’s a great place to work if you like to be surrounded by smart, hardworking, fun folks. Monetary and organizational recognition for contributions is ample.

Cons

Don't expect lavish, boom-era swag; Hotwire provides discount products and manages it's finances like wise. Relatively small size limits promotion opportunities.

Advice to Senior Management

Rock on.

Pros

Open environment; plenty of opportunities to engage in all aspects of the comany's business unites. Approachable management. There is a true concern on behalf of EVERYONE to get the job done while still having a life and furthering a career.

Cons

Ah....GD wants SOMETHING in this field. Tried to submit without it because I truly couldn't think of anything I personally dislike. There are things I know people don't like but it's third party and so, therefore, not germaine to MY comments.

Advice to Senior Management

Make you-know-who plan more parties, more events, more meals, more EVERYTHING. He's great. I mean great. Great. There. Twenty words.

Pros

Management is creative when it comes to finding ways to increase company morale when budgets are tight everywhere.

Cons

Some departments have little room for growth because of the nature of the business.

Advice to Senior Management

Good work, but don't be shy about cutting dead weight...there is some (not in this department.)

Pros

Great senior management that is actively looking at the industry and seeing what things we can adapt and what areas we can excel. Work life balance is great. People are very smart and energetic. People also know how to have fun.

Cons

Downstream communication from time to time can be delayed sometimes.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work on keeping on top of the industry.

Pros

Hotwire is a good place to work if you want to chill out and not work hard. The hours are fair and you can arrive and leave pretty much when you want. Even more-so if you are a manager it seems. The company is still hiring which could be viewed as a positive to some. If you aspire to run for senate or governor you could learn a lot here with such a rich set of politics. Most people do not roll in until after 9 and after 6 its a ghost town so if you want fair hours it is very good as well. You do not have to innovate or push the envelope here so if you want to relax and coast you will like it.

Clem is a great new President. Eric was good but quiet. Clem really is energetic.

Cons

Innovation. There is not much. 4 or 5 years back there was a lot more and then innovation stopped. Working on a new 'agile' project has introduced more procedure then the already over whelming amount of procedure. The economy is down yet we are still hiring even though half the employees seem to surf the web all day. There is not much innovation. Apparently we have a lab here for innovation and I just found out about it recently. Thus bad communication. They promote 'family' values however working a day a week at home was not allowed for me. However, some managers seem to work at home at-will. What a double standard. They will also make 'rules' for you if you want to work at home. For example if you live say 45 miles away you can work at home. But if you live in daily city and it takes you 1 hour to commute here you can not. There is very little collaboration here. Very waterfall in all aspects and very risk adverse. It seems the less you do the more you get rewarded. If you go the extra mile and screw up a small something you will get scolded instead of a 'good job'. The pay is below industry standard and even in this 'down economy' you could get better pay and probably work at home privileges. Also some depts let people work at home and some do not. What a double standard.

If you read all these other people saying things like 'startup' or 'nimble' or 'scrappy' do not even believe it. There is nothing startup here at all. Its one step below a huge corporate machine.

GLASS CEILING - Very hard to promote. Unless they create a position for you.

Advice to Senior Management

More communication.
More flexible work hours, let people work at home if they perform.
Put emphasis on what people do and not if there are in the office 9-5.
Reward those that work hard, say thanks one a year to somebody.
Use this economy to have a RIF and get rid of all the slackers and middle managers.
Try to innovate.

Pros

Hotwire is a melting pot of smart and energetic employees immersed in fun and fast moving corporate culture. The open environment at Hotwire allows for high levels of collaboration, eliminates surprises in the business, and allows for real-time identification of risks/opportunities. There are competent employees in nearly every area of the business and most processes run without issue.

Cons

The association with the parent company causes some "Big Company" hurdles to be pushed down stream to a company that thrives on keeping "Small Company" nimbleness. The company doesn't pay great for the industry, but the benefits greatly help to ease the pain. Hotwire management is probably a little too risk averse, but nearly every initiative can be counted on to deliver positive results.

Advice to Senior Management

It is very important to maintain the corporate culture and to stick to the companies core values and business strategy. Continue to focus on what we do well and to not dive head first into new and untested territory. Continue to encourage open collaboration across all departments and inter company camaraderie.

Pros

There is a great life/work balance at Hotwire, along with a good group of people to work with.

Cons

Hotwire is a relatively small company, so there can be me lateral opportunities available than promotions

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to innovate and look within the company for new ideas

Pros

wonderful smart people make a wonderful work environment

Cons

lean resources can mean a lot of work if one is a subject matter expert at something. support roles have more reasonable hours

Advice to Senior Management

SMEs need understudies; we need more resources

Pros

high energy envrionment, and driven and encouraging workforce. Access to the executive team - even at the entry level positions. The envrionment supports cross postion/deparment communication. If I needed to I can and have written an e-mail to the VP of product and asked for direction/information and I am not at the executive level, and have gotten an honest answer and help.

 Relatively good work/life balance - set your own working hours, and flexibility with telecommuting - sort of... Good morale boosters, frequent team building and on-site training offered for development. The company still has the start-up feel, but the best way to describe it, is that it's growing up. Realizing that it's past its adolecence of 'start-up-dom' and trying to move towards a more polished 'business' perspective.
Casual wear in the office, and some good benefits & perks. (Earnest bonuses, expresso machines on sight, dot com shwag is common and easily pillagable, plus FOOZBALL!!! and lunchtime scrabble tourney's)

Cons

Being that it is a small/med sized company there are limited options for promotion and advancement within the same team/department. Although part of a larger company, it means that advancement may mean going to a partner company.

The hours lean towards the long, and there is little colaboration within in the groups, unless forced for a project. Eating at your desk for lunch is a regular daily occurance. The workload is large, and the project management is sometimes haphazard and break neck.

The business wants to get too much done on a shoestring. They can expect Lamborghini's and get stuck with Ford Fiesta's becuase of the lack of appropraite staffing and forsight. Marketing and Product teams take most of the gold stars... most other departments are adjuncts.

Advice to Senior Management

Consider that being 'scrappy' means that the tradeoff is going to result in a higher turnover in your core support departments.
Invest in different types (or longer) iteration cycles, and less of a focus on marketing.
Infrastructure is still essential to executing on ideas, and being nimble doesn't necessarily make a company healthy. For longer term sustainabilty think about what needs to be done to maintain, not just advance.

Pros

The company has a great work life balance. The company has a good strategic plan and doesn't deviate from it to chase the idea of the month. Most of the people are fun to work with and are smart and motivated. The perks are pretty good. You get pretty good discounts on travel. There are company events and morale boosters pretty frequently. The office is new and nice. The company is pretty small so you get to know almost everyone. But it is part of Expedia so there is the backing of a larger company. The company is performing very well.

Cons

Because the company is small, the opportunities for advancement are limited. There could be better communication and collaboration between some of the groups. Other than that there is not a lot of negative things that I could say about working at Hotwire. On a more macro level, one downside is that the business is going to follow the trends of the economy. As fewer people are able or willing to travel, that will have a negative impact on how Hotwire performs. This is true for many businesses, but leisure travel is probably a sector that could be harder hit by the economic slowdown.

Advice to Senior Management

Figure out better ways to allow people to be promoted through the organization.