Orbitz Worldwide Reviews in Chicago, IL Area

Pros

- Great culture of technical excellence
- Really smart, sharp people
- Management has a clear direction and good execution
- Free breakfast foods and drinks
- Eco-friendly office
- The best location possible in Chicago
- Very good compensation
- Very flexible hours
- Travel agent benefits
- Work from home possible
- So many opportunities to learn and work on what you want
- Technology-agnostic as long as it gets the job done
- Hundreds of restaurants in walking distance
- Company throws parties periodically with kegs and they are fun. The annual party is awesome!

Cons

- No stock options
- Provides Blackberries which is a type of phone they used to make
- A bit too much employee turnover

Advice to Senior Management

Management is doing a fantastic job in the last couple years. We need to somehow retain people more so we don't lose knowledge. It's already a fantastic place to work though so I'm not sure how they'd do that!

Pros

Orbitz employees are generally smart, laid back and approachable, which makes this a great place to work -- you're always surrounded by and working with great people. The casual work environment and general start-up feel of the company/work (despite its huge size) is also a huge plus. Top-down communications explaining new initiatives and plans are frequent; under Barney Harford, company goals are crystal clear.

Cons

It's a known problem within Orbitz that it can sometimes be challenging to get things done due to the sheer size and complexity of the company and the various groups' roadmaps that compete for developers and resources. However, management has acknowledged this as a legitimate issue and is doing everything it can to get cross-departmental teams working together in order to break away from this widely-believed notion.

Career development plans tend to be unclear; it's widely believed that career advancement at Orbitz requires proactive conversations with management that some (if not most) would deem awkward. Management/HR could do a better job of making sure these conversations (if desired) occur so that employees and their managers are on the same page and have similar expectations come review time.

Pros

Orbitz attracts top talent and encourages you to bring your A-game

Cons

LONG HOURS can wear you down and be relentless

Pros

Relaxed atmosphere (you can make your own hours!)
Plenty of time to develop your own skills. It's so relaxed and you have time to work on stuff that you want to play with. There were also great brown bag and after hours sessions for technology subjects. All in all Orbitz was a great place for nurturing the inner nerd in us software developers.

Cons

Management of the company was directionless and mostly clueless.
I never felt that we did a good enough job innovating Orbitz as a company.
This left us playing catchup to the competition.

Pros

New technologies, freedom, easy going environment

Cons

I think that in many occasions too much money is expended in things that do not benefit the company, while costs are cuts in things that hurt.

Advice to Senior Management

Do not save so much with employee costs, try to cut expenses somewhere else

Pros

If you're in senior management, you're doing well here. If you're not, forget about it; you're being used.

Cons

Impossible to advance if you're not one of the chosen few. Lots of talk about opportunities, but little actually makes it to the people actually doing the work.
Senior management lives in a dream world - rewards don't trickle out to the company at large.

Advice to Senior Management

Reward the people doing the work.

Pros

No Dress Code
Encouraged to ask questions and get more training
Executives friendly and approachable
Management trust employees
Young and dynamic, lots of energy
flexibility in work schedule
location
free pop and fruit

Cons

sometimes announcements not fed down; here about changes through the grapevine
flat organization has some middle managers jockeying for position

Advice to Senior Management

Its a great place to work and there are a lot resources for training and benefits, just make sure everyone knows about them. Some employees are left on their own digging through internal websites for help.

Pros

Open atmosphere, telecommuting option, open to ideas, great HR and softskills training

Cons

Systems riddled with unnecessary complexities which can be easily taken out

Advice to Senior Management

Lack of business knowledge documentation just makes it hard for new joinees to provide optimal input towards solution. Wiki is just a tool but we need a good process to manage knowledge retention.

Pros

There are a lot of technically interesting projects going on, and it's relatively easy to move to one that you like. There are a large number of initiatives always in progress, and you can always learn from someone else's work.
The senior management team is very accessible, and they actually take part in & contribute to meetings with people of all levels.

Cons

The flipside to having a lot of projects in motion is that it's sometimes hard to know exactly what is going on. Business priorities change often, and this impacts technical projects.

Advice to Senior Management

Work harder to hire smart people, even if they don't have any experience in the travel arena. Make good hiring something everyone is able to contribute to.

Pros

A highly collegial environment where you look forward to engaging with your co-workers. There are tons of interesting initiatives going on all the time - makes you feel proud to work for a company that is on the leading edge in its industry. There are loads of social activities - happy hours, holiday parties, and volunteer events, etc - if that's your thing. If not, you don't feel pressured to join.

Cons

While there are opportunities for professional development, the size of the company naturally limits the potential for upward mobility beyond a certain level. It's not to say that people don't get promoted -- they do - but in some areas of the company there are too few spots coveted by many people.