Tripadvisor Reviews

Pros

The people at TripAdvisor are easy going, friendly, caring, and extremely intelligent. They are perhaps some of the most competent people I have ever worked with. Add the great team to phenomenal perks like free lunch, dogs in the office, a fitness center with nice locker rooms, a pub and game room, and you've got a great great place to work.

Cons

The company is trying to figure out how to grow its revenue and what it wants to be a five years from now. The vision is a bit hazy so you might find yourself working on a big new initiative, only to find the company is changing directions to another big new initiative. It can be frustrating, but I am hopeful that they will find their way in the next couple of years.

Pros

I've been at Trip for over 3 years and have been incredibly happy. Unlike most companies Trip actually cares about people being happy. They actively find ways to make the day better and your work environment the best it can be. It's something you notice every day you are there. The food is almost too good and the office has a very comfy / vibrant feel. The snack game is strong and constantly has new stuff. Everywhere in the office has a feeling like it was built to make you smile and not to cram as much productivity per square inch as possible like many other companies. You are always working on stuff that people will see. No matter what team you are on it's easy to see your impact in the product. Similarly everywhere you go you will see Tripadvisor stickers, which is super cool. People really do love the Trip brand. The CEO has an actual heart. Many times when not so great things have happened in the world he has stood up to say what's right. He doesn't hide behind what he thinks will have minimal shareholder impact but is maybe the right thing. He consistently takes a stand that I'm proud of.

Cons

Trip has a rough road ahead. Google has been pushing into the market and that has a massive impact on what the company can do going forward. They need to make some big choices to deal with that and those won't be easy. There's a ton of aging code and UIs that are difficult to work with. Obviously there are projects to deal with that but they are slow and you'll have to deal with some pretty old stuff. Projects can easily spend more time dealing with old cruft then actually writing the new stuff. Similarly there's way to many people working in oversized, unwieldy codebases. You never know when something will change out from under you or another team could break your code. That's supposed to be balanced by a group "design review" system but I've never had much faith in design-by-committee. At best people are impartial and at worst you end up with nit picking. Most of the time it's a smooth process but there's not really enough buy in from people to make it worth it. Almost all the work is either reactionary or focused on bottom line impact. Projects are always focused on short term goals and rarely think of the longer term impact, market positioning, or brand value. If it raises profits by more than x% we ship it. Everything is an a/b feature test which get's piled into the code. As a result nothing is ever done with strong intent to get it right. Get ready for changes. Your working team will change every couple months. People are constantly shifted into new squads, team structures, re-orgs, etc. I can't think of a quarter where there wasn't some major change in who I worked with.

Pros

Smart engineers, challenging problems and great benefits.

Cons

Upper management is a disaster and has been for years. The company changes course every six months and every new idea is presented as THE IDEA that will fix everything, though often it's something only a few people at the top think is worth doing and everyone on the ground knows will fail. There are highs and lows but the company has been trending downward the last year or two. It's a shame because at its core TripAdvisor is a really great product and something that users love. Unfortunately the company has spent far more time and money on failed marketing campaigns and redesigns than it has in on improving its infrastructure in a way that actually benefits users.

Pros

- Travel is the industry. - Smart colleagues. - Lunch is provided since HQ is in Needham.

Cons

Want the truth? - Self centered leadership drives decision making at the executive level. Very political and company is masking it with a reorganization. - Unprecedented level of micro management and indecision from the executive team that stifles progress across the company. Speed can't win. - Once a decision is made, it's a fire drill every time. Make sure you respond to your email promptly on weekends and holidays. - Almost no accountability at the senior leadership level and above. All blame is put on those less senior despite conflicting directives and moving goals. - Excessive hiring in the attractions business supported by the executive team led to justified round of layoffs of mostly lower level employees with a couple of senior leaders. - Morale continues to be very low with no turnaround in sight. - Little importance placed on transparency at the company despite it being a core value. - Attrition continues in a year that will see the stock price hit a new low.

Pros

This company genuinely cares about employees and has a great working environment. People are smart and there are interesting things to do.

Cons

The business model of the company is failing and the CEO only wants to double down on it, so there is a very uncertain future.

Pros

Smart people, great pay, great benefits, incredible office perks

Cons

priorities / direction changes too quickly, making it impossible to do anything meaningful at scale