Airbnb Employee Reviews about "growing pains"

Pros

- Compensation: pays more than any other tech company (Google, FB, etc) PLUS new cash bonus PLUS can choose to take your equity refreshers (no cliff) in cash. They also bump everyone to above midpoint of the range, which is really kind and close any gaps for pay equity. - Business is doing really well: we're profitable, have money to invest in employees + new ventures, never worried about money. Not even having a round of funding for this far out is amazing. - Great benefits. Free airbnb credits (never expire), lots of PTO and time off, easy parking lot next to the building (they reimburse the price), free lyft credits, top notch food program, etc. - Management is honest about their pitfalls and is honest about fixing it. I appreciate this because they could sweep it under the rug. - We're heavily invested in our infrastructure as a 2019 focus. Even hired a CTO who has decades of infrastructure heavy lifting under his belt. Sweet! - People are really kind and helpful. Fairly rare. There are always going to be politics because people befriend eachother, but honestly you can set up a meeting with a director and they will help you resolve easily. As long as you speak out, people will listen.

Cons

Typical growing pains for our size, honestly. For a long time, Airbnb was flat and you could grow your career quickly since the company was small. Now they're trying to add ways to grow your career and make it defined and achievable since there's not low hanging fruit from a flat org, which is good. There's also increased attrition for people who have been here 5-7+ years, but honestly I think fresh people who are excited and new have been better for my team personally. Many managers are also junior, but we've started to hire senior managers - my manager's manager has been doing a great job shaping and changing, which I appreciate.

Pros

- Great food (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and amazing snacks) -A plethora of opportunities to travel the world - Impressive name on your resume

Cons

Promises are made again and again and there is no follow-up. You can't trust your manager, and to make it worse, you have an abundance of inexperienced managers that unfortunately are not given the tools they need to succeed. Airbnb is bleeding money and talent, and it doesn't know how to fix it. The level of bureaucracy is unacceptable for a company its age and size. It behaves like a company of 100,000 employees, when it only has 3,000. The growing pains are being felt all over the company, and people are discouraged. I wish I had a real perspective of what was happening on the inside before accepting my offer. The culture is (or was) amazing, but it won't be enough to make you happy amidst this mess.

Pros

There is an electric energy when you walk into any one of Airbnb's offices that immediately gives you a sense of how mission-driven and collaborative the employee community is.

Cons

The company is going through some growing pains, and priorities can shift often. All that said, I'd rather be in that environment than one that is 100% predictable and rigid.

Pros

- Genuinely supportive and invested coworkers - Founders are very focused on not stagnating as we grow - Engineers can choose their own team, so you can find a team that suits you in terms of work-life balance / productivity. There's no global company culture of "workaholics" or "slackers", you really can just find the right role for you - Similarly, it's easy to find the kind of eng role you prefer (product, front-end, infra, etc) - Diversity efforts are the best I've ever seen or heard of in a large tech company. Estaff is very committed to increasing our internal diversity and also making sure there are no problems with discrimination of any kind. (Our mission is "belong anywhere" and leadership takes that very very seriously, including internally.) - Leadership is constantly working to fix any employee issues that arise, we take tons of happiness surveys and have lots of communication on how they're planning to improve things that are issues - Basically Airbnb has always seemed very committed to employee happiness, via perks and transparency and inclusion, and it works!

Cons

- Sometimes the growing pains can get frustrating and things can move kind of slow, but in my experience it's better than most companies this size - Gym memberships are not included in perks

Pros

-- Great brand that constantly attracts top talent -- Growing at fast pace -- Bold mission -- Beautiful office

Cons

-- Lots of people are here for the wrong reasons. Whether people want to admit it or not, countless people are here for the equity, and won't hesitate to jump ship when things go south. There are prank emails titled "Important IPO Update" to get people's attention; I've overheard countless conversations with people 1) reminiscing about their old company and not willing to leave until they vest, 2) not being truly passionate about the product, or 3) directly comparing how much equity they got. The IPO is a constant question that's asked during all-hands and is frequently the most upvoted. -- The Kool-Aid here is stronger than ever. Buy into the cult or leave. A ton of people are hesitant or afraid to tell upper management about what they don't like about recent/upcoming product(s) such as Magical Trips. Several coworkers whom I've talked to and I have been part of conversations (even involving middle management) where people have openly voiced their concerns or complaints. -- Really poor transparency. Political. Depends on your team and YMMV. Your manager may verbally tell you that you're doing great and dole out compliments every so often, but you may be shocked when your performance reviews come out. -- "Culture" can be described as how well you embody the company's mission and core values, and is ridiculously subjective. Lots of talented people don't make the cut because they failed to make a good impression on the core values interviews. It's Airbnb's way of weeding out people who aren't a "good fit" for their clique. -- Very cliquey, feels like a frat. If you fit in, you'll like it. If you don't, you won't. Emphasis on drinking at company events. Overheard multiple people on different occasions making straight up sexist remarks during and after work. -- Poor work-life balance. People appear happy-go-lucky but many are in fact stressed out. Lyft drivers often tell me how people complain about work. Coworkers I've talked to complain about the constant pressure to do well for performance evaluations. -- Lots and lots of growing pains. Honestly not at all surprised they plunged to #35 on Glassdoor.

Pros

Amazing people, incredible environment, you're continuously being challenged to do new work or try something different, highly talented peers and co-workers, people are all incredibly driven to see work to completion, content and projects never seems to be the same or boring, there was always something new and exciting to work on.

Cons

Management is a constant struggle, they aren't hiring the right people for management yet. There is a complete lack of role clarify. Job descriptions and teams structures are never fully flushed out. A lot of growing pains while the company is try to grow with scale.