Whitepages Software Engineer Reviews

Pros

Whitepages has about 30 employees, which means it is small enough that everyone knows what is going on. The culture set by management is great - employees are given authority, tools and responsibly to get things done. There is little or no "politics". The whole company emphases openness (regular all hands where financial & business results are shared) & collaboration (people work together to solve problems, often across different disciplines). There is plenty of opportunity to learn about new stuff. The overall feel is a bit like a startup (despite being 20+ years old), but just the good parts of a startup: freedom, responsibility, attitude, openness, clever people, work hard and get rewarded. The physical space is great and reflects the culture: open plan, sit/stand desks, no offices (even for the CEO) so everyone is accessible. But at the same time, it is a work environment, there is not too much noise. In one of the best locations in downtown Seattle with easy access to transit & lots of food trucks and restaurants.

Cons

Whitepages has a good strategic vision and is not constantly changing direction (unlike some other "startup"-like companies), but sometimes these get interrupted to react to something that is happening in the marketplace. Benefits are very good, but can be communicated poorly (e.g. the "unlimited vacation" which is not truly unlimited).

Pros

Smart people with interesting products and a big big big growth plan. You code on day 1 and your impact is LARGE. They pay really well and are getting better about removing people who don't perform before they reap havoc. Unlimited vacation (well, that is a misnomer bc you can't really take more than 4 weeks without business impact), training budget (who has those anymore), a willingness to switch to new cool products (Scala) when the rest of the world is still moving to Ruby. options that I think may actually mean something vs some of my other startups, company trips to Vegas, Whistler, and Bend, a kegerator and a well stocked whisky wall, lunch with the CEO every other week and happy hour every other Friday. Too many things.

Cons

sometimes we have to do work twice or three times because the directions initially are not complete from the product team so the features change and the product slips. It's improving on one team with the arrival of the EVP of Product though and I'm betting we get this humming soon.

Pros

I work as a software engineer in Whitepages. When I just joined the company, I was given a lot of responsibilities to own multiple systems and work across teams. Now I work in three teams and enjoy coming to work everyday. I pick up my own task, talk to my teammates to design it and work to completion. I can just walk to anyone's desk and ask a question. I have to say that I have learned a tons of stuff in the last few months. Whitepages gives me the comfort of a large company while giving the start-up experience working with 25 engineers to run a website which has 65 million unique visitors a month. One best thing which I love about this company is the awesome culture and the cool people with whom I work. You really need to be here to experience it :) Another perk is that you can talk to your CEO whenever you want and he is very transparent about the things thats going on in the company . I have conversed with Rob couple of times and found him to be a great person with the passion for business and a positive attitude.

Cons

Innovation is the key for any business. I kind of think we have to improve more in innovating new products. It still lacks the brand value among engineers and in business. It is much needed to attract more talent into the company.

Pros

This past summer I joined Whitepages as a front end engineering intern, and by the end of the summer I was a fully functioning member of one of the Full Stack teams. I started the summer with no knowledge of the web frameworks and architectures that were currently being used. My mentor however, did a really good job of finding relevant projects that I could work on while learning the frameworks. I felt like while I was learning I was still making an impact on my team from day one. Once I was up to speed I began taking on projects like any other full-time team member. I can honestly say at Whitepages I was surrounded by people who were willing to help me improve, and I feel that I made an impact from day one. I enjoyed interning at Whitepages and I have decided to return as a full time employee.

Cons

One downside from this summer was performance reviews. I felt there could have been better communication regarding how I was performing throughout the internship. It was unclear if they thought I was doing well or I could improve until the last week of my internship.

Pros

I've worked here for two years as a full-stack engineer. I began as an intern in 2014 and converted to full-time after my graduation in 2015. Throughout the entire time, I've learned so much about how to approach problems and create maintainable, scalable solutions. There is very little ego in the engineering departments, which means I don't have any problems approaching other teams about issues that I need help with.

Cons

I always feel a little self-consious about working at a company that has data for almost every adult in North America. It's a huge privacy concern. However, knowing that we try our best to take down information for people who request it sets my mind at ease. Recently, our CEO has changed from Alex Algard to Rob Elevelt. Rob is an excellent public speaker, but lacks the engineering background that Alex had. As a result, all-hands meetings have become much more focused on what the Whitepages Pro (B2B) portion of the company is doing, which isn't as interesting to me.

Pros

I have been working in Whitepages Full-time for a little less than 6 months. Transparent leadership, management is aware of their goals and upcoming roadmaps and planning ahead with the market changes. Great opportunity to work with a diverse team and a smart group of people. Good work-life balance and opportunities to grow your career. Since its a small company, it gives you the opportunity to contribute and have ownership of your work. Employee benefits are pretty good and management takes good care of the employees.

Cons

Although Whitepages offers great benefits and employer HSA contributions, Whitepages does not do 401k matching. Being part of small companies you have to wear multiple hats which can be challenging at times to fulfill different responsiblities. Managing the workload is the biggest challenge.

Pros

Summarized: Exposure to technology and people. It's a smaller team, so there's a lot of exposure to the different types of technologies. Issues are handled quickly by the people on-call. Lots of interaction with both your teammates, and people in other groups.

Cons

Summarized: Short-term gig. The learning curve levels off fairly quickly after a year. Not much of a code review since PMs are breathing down your neck, so no wonder there's a good handle on fixing production issues fast.

Pros

You get to know everything, and able to handle production issues really quickly. Have exposure to all the technologies the company uses. Cool and interesting people. Compensation is good for a company this size. The company makes good profits.

Cons

Career is stagnant after a while, little room for growth Constantly rewriting the same services, solving the same issues over and over. Culture is secretive, decisions made behind doors and not communicated well No clear vision for business growth No matter how good or important you are, you can get laid off out of the blue, sometimes on the morning right after you are back from vocation. Decent place to start, not long term Almost 100% turnover in engineering within 4 months definitely says something...

Pros

The engineering core at WP is dedicated and sets up a great environment in which things get done. The CEO and CTO are very accessible to talk to on a daily basis, and truly value Engineering excellence. Great office and great benefits.

Cons

As a front-end developer, the advertising tactics requested by the product owners distract too much from the great services put forth, e.g. pop-under ads, unclearly marked partner links, etc. Technical debt remaining after each sprint is not scheduled into the scope of feature work, causing headaches and old software versions (Rails 2.1.0 being the primary example)

Pros

Lots of free lunches Decent Benefits Some very hard working fun engineers Flexible time scheduling The best things about whitepages are the things that have the least to do with being a software engineer.

Cons

management driven projects poor management aged ( old ) website infrastructure EXTREMELY difficult release process test suite that is non-deterministic and flaky at best Overall the experience of working at whitepages is on of attrition or denial. Any moves to truly shift from old school management driven work to forward thinking innovation are snuffed by an exceedingly long cycle for making such cultural changes. The rails stack is aging and unbearable to work with. Most of the MVP developer / engineers have left the company to start / work at start ups.