Hilton Lead Programmer Analyst Reviews

Pros

The Memphis corporate office has a comfortable, casual workplace that makes you happy to come to work in the morning. When your life requires you to be elsewhere, the work schedule can be flexible as long as you work something out with your manager. The benefits are good ranging from your typical 401(k) plan and a solid medical program to discounts on hotel rooms and hotel furnishings.

Cons

Office politics can be a drag but I suppose that will be an issue wherever you go. I also assume this will vary from place to place you work within Hilton. Hilton is not an IT company, and the IT department does not run as such. If you are used to and prefer structure and standards, you may be dissapointed.

Pros

Hilton Hotels has a large IT community, thanks to the merger it had with Promus some years back. The nature of IT to create software and other apps for the business is commendable. It is primarily a Microsoft organization, but there are other opportunities for Unix, Java, and VLDB work. It is also a great place for aggressive, ladder-climbing people who are looking for a high-level management position.

Cons

Unfortunately, there is far too much upper management within the IT group. We often see first-year programmers reporting directly to directors. We also often see far too many levels of management, layered within a department whose primary function should be to provide the best product for our guests and the personnel who interact directly with the guests. Hilton also has a strange habit of promoting employees for odd and often unknown reasons. Never have I seen a better working example of the saying: "Those who can, work; those who cannot, manage." (paraphrased) Also, the obscene amount of high-level managers invariably leads to incredibly slow and irrational decisions. Couple this with with a development cycle that looks a little like Agile, and you have a preponderance of chaos with people constantly running around with their hair on fire. For the employees in the trenches who spend most of their time fixing the junk that the outsourced consultants manage to continually churn out, promotions are non-existent. All exempt employees (programmers) who genuinely work hard and are good at what they do will never find themselves in a different position, because everything would grind to a halt without them. It is true that, once in a position, a Hilton programmer will never advance. One other thing is the pathetic health and dental plans that keep getting more expensive and less effective year by year.

Pros

Hilton has a team member travel program that allows employees to stay at Hilton properties at discounted rates. Although I have never once been able to get an "Employee" room at any hotel without personally calling the hotels general manager, it is possible to get "Family" rates which, although they are not free, are discounted from the properties normal nightly rate. Depending on what projects in IT you work in, there is some opportunity to work with some of the latest Microsoft technology. If you happen to work of one of these groups there are some really great toys to play with.

Cons

Hilton's corporate offices are very bloated with middle management. Layer after layer of bureaucracy that impedes the company from making any real progress. The Blackstone Group, who now owns Hilton is about to make a massive round of cuts and in the near future this may no longer be the case. Only time will tell. Corporate as a whole, has little or no project management processes in place to allow projects to be managed effectively. In most instances projects are successful in spite of themselves. If you can stand the utter lack of organization and the mind numbing bureaucracy, Hilton will be a fine place for you to work.

Pros

- The blackstone acqusition. Yes, that's right. So far they've gotten rid of a lot of deadweight. A SVP with no direct reports. Yea, that was a good idea! - Most groups are laid back yet still deliver. - It's the best IT shop in town all things considered. AutoZone? IT cesspit. FedEx? Bureaucratic nightmare.

Cons

- Ad hoc is the name of the game. No standards, at all, anywhere. That means no coding standards, technology standards, process standards, interface standards. None, at all. It's not uncommon to have a single department maintain multiple systems that do the same thing. - Every director and higher (save about 2) is clueless about technology. That's not necessarily bad in and of itself, but they think that they know what they're doing and make decisions based upon that false sense of expertise. That's the bad part!