Zillow Reviews

Pros

Smart people - Zillow is a the place to experience awesome marketing and media product innovation.
Transparency and trust - Zillow leadership communicates the details of the business' performance to all employees regularly.
Ethics & ideals - despite being extremely ambitious A-type entrepreneurs, it's a rare honor to work with a team that really tries to do the right thing and who are leaving the RE industry better than they found it.

Cons

Thin option allocations in a small co. with a declining book value. Top heavy org is unnecessarily political for a small company.

Advice to Senior Management

Wear sunscreen.

Pros

Fun company, great office, interesting problems to solve.

Cons

it's a tech startup, so layoffs should be a fear.

Advice to Senior Management

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Pros

Terrific people, most of whom have backgrounds from some of the top area companies like MS, Expedia, and Amazon.
Big industry ripe for change- real estate is a multi-billion dollar category stuck in the dark ages.
Chance to work on a disruptive business.
Good work-life balance for a start up.
Interesting and challenging work- you will work on projects that are core to the company and to its vision.

Cons

Stingy stock grants- which is surprising given that this is what should be motivating employees.
Liquidity event is many years away- plan on at least 3-4 years before your stock has value.
Still struggling to drive revenue- advertising is an ok way to go, but the company needs more revenue streams.
Limited career upside as it is a small company.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on ways to drive revenue. Develop products that professionals would be willing to pay for. Look for more than an IPO as a way to motivate employees.

Pros

The employees and the atmosphere. Having worked at large software companies before, I appreciated Zillow's open policy about everything. Even when the news isn't great news, senior management is very professional about how they discuss things and they welcome an open discussion. Over time, this transparency exposed me to every aspect of managing the business outside of my job description and expectations. This is something I would have never seen from the aforementioned large software company.

Cons

Restructuring the company to better handle a global slow down in advertisement markets, Zillow recently went through a reduction in force (RIF). This sudden and drastic change greatly affects the company makeup, it's culture, and it unavoidably drains the company of senior talent and "tribal" knowledge.

Rapid development and execution of ideas were largely a result of throwing lots of resources at a problem. Rather than rely on the product development team to quickly innovate and then refine an idea, execution of a plan was often bogged down quibling over minor details. Almost making the argument for the RIF, a smaller team with less oversight could deliver a similar, if not quite as polished product, in less time.

Advice to Senior Management

Some decisions are tough, but don't be afraid to openly share why certain decisions are made. By being selective about who Zillow hires, you can find employees who are passionate about working at Zillow; while those hard decisions will be met with disappointment, they will also be met with respect and understanding. Continue to treat your employees well, and they will continue to do their very best.

Pros

If you have a high tolerance for chaos in pursuit of something remarkable, it's a great place to work. They trust their employees to figure things out. They're doing stuff that nobody else is trying. The technology itself wasn't necessarily all that innovative, with a few exceptions, but the concept and execution is definitely game-changing.

Cons

It's operated like a startup, even though the size of the engineering team, even post-layoff, makes that tricky; the management directive to adopt "agile" methods without any move to any particular agile methodology in mind was, in most teams, mostly taken as justification to do no planning.

Advice to Senior Management

Figure out the revenue side, but don't sacrifice the development of the technology side on the way. Maybe too late on that, though.

Pros

There are numerous difficult challenges, both on the business side and the technical side; people in general are aware of them and desire to solve them. While not perfect overall the atmosphere of the company is positive -- people are supportive and respectful, and in general decisions strike a good balance between collaboration and top-level initiative (i.e., upper level people will take a stand when required).

Cons

Sometimes too much experience can be a negative, especially in the operational space. Sometimes process overwhelms individual judgments on the merits, and there's a tendency towards risk aversion and overreacting when (inevitable) mistakes take place. Elements of senior management tend to dictate low-level details or otherwise randomize the staff.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on where you want the company to go rather than how you think those goals should be achieved. Company-wide demos aren't the best spot to nitpick design details.

Pros

I enjoyed the open and giving atmosphere. Collaboration and cooperation was definitely the norm at Zillow -- everywhere you went, there were people having impromptu meetings, sketching on whiteboards, working out problems together. Everyone was focused on creating the best product possible and invested in helping others create their best work to get there. The development cycle was tight controlled and executed, which allowed for quick turnaround on features. Everyone gave 100% and was serious about their job -- I can only think of one or two people that didn't seem to pull their weight (and there's always at least one, right?) All in all, the people were absolutely the best.

Cons

For me, I sometimes felt that, since I wasn't a java dev, that I wasn't privy to a lot of information that they were getting. They seemed to know about a secret repository of knowledge that no one else did, so I felt like I was playing catch-up all the time. I personally was not given very much training to start, so I felt there were major gaps in my knowledge about how the site worked and was put together. I was issued a VERY slow computer that impeded my productivity tremendously, and prying loose the resources to buy new equipment was difficult.

Advice to Senior Management

Give people more than a half-hour's notice if you think you'll need to make layoffs!

Pros

Important mission, innovative products, empowering business culture. You need to be ready to dive in and be a self starter, no hand holding here. Decision making is decentralized and everyone can have a voice. Most employees believe in the mission and all have equity. Lots of fun perks - the usual Internet start up stuff + surprisingly strong benefits.

Cons

Sometimes there is to much debate, fairly relentless pace. Business side needs to be willing to travel.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep focused.

Pros

Zillow's products are very cool and I firmly believe that they are making the world a better place for consumers. There are a lot of smart people working here that can be very inspiring, if they can stick it out long enough.

Cons

It's my perception that most employees in product development are viewed as easily replaceable cogs by the business team. The lack of respect for employees results in very high turnover which has obvious ramifications for morale. Equity in the company is hoarded by senior management and opportunities for advancement are virtually non-existent. The "startup" atmosphere is at best an illusion. Individuals have almost no opportunity to contribute to the product.

Advice to Senior Management

Treating a few smart employees well would be a lot more efficient than hiring armies of drones that you can abuse until they leave.

Pros

work environment is very transparent,
people treat eachother with respect,
all the co workers are fun and friendly
Zillow gives awesome parties,
there is a happy hour every other week with company sponsored beer, wine and food
Well stocked with game tables like darts, air hockey, pool, mini golf, pingpong, etc.
They cater dinners and lunches regularly if people are working late. Of course the provide free food and sodas

Cons

Be prepared for some very hectic work schedules,
senior management can have some unreasonable expectations,
the release schedules are extremely aggressive. It can take its toll after a while. many people can end feeling burned out. The work-life balance is good but not great.

Advice to Senior Management

lighten up