Zillow Employee Reviews about "upper management"

Pros

Access to upper management at all levels, Transparency of Sr. Leadership, Core Values taken seriously, Focus on people, Great working spaces

Cons

Nothing outside of any company that goes through the growing pains of maturing.

Advice to Management

Keep up the great focus you have on people! Don't start shaving away at Culture as the company scales because that's what truly makes Zillow such a great place to work.

Pros

Snacks, good healthcare, diversity and inclusion, LGBT awareness, equity, "unlimited PTO" if your manager likes you.

Cons

There is ZERO career development in the Zillow IT org, most particularly in the Security space. The company claims to take security seriously, but doesn't anywhere anymore except on paper. The team has had massive turn over in the past six months. (Which isn't surprising if you consider the level of management turnover in the IT org as a whole.) The annual review system is broken. You can get zero compensation... raise and zero equity without an explanation as to why -even if you met ALL of your performance goals and have good manager and peer review. If you ask for some rationale as to how this happened with an entire year of good feedback from management the only response you'll get is, "Let's just focus on the future." The annual review system seems to be based on how well your manager is liked by their manager. None of it makes any sense. So good luck getting a raise. Ever. Honestly, if you are considering work on the security team at Zillow, you shouldn't. You can easily get hired elsewhere in town where the leadership takes security seriously. You can find somewhere where you won't have multiple managers in one year because of turnover. (literally) You can find a place that takes your career seriously. The security team has seen high management turnover, zero career development, can't get traction with other teams, budget gets approved (verbally) then slashed over and over. Then upper management says asks why security hasn't solved for X problem. It's because we have no budget or headcount!

Advice to Management

No advice. We both know who the problem is. Don't @ me.

Pros

Fair pay, lovely benefits, no shortage of snacks.

Cons

Management basically threatened to fire everyone over metrics that are OUT OF OUR CONTROL. Everyone in the Seattle office is FREAKING OUT. I myself have had several panic attacks over this. It baffles me how this company can treat us so different from the rest of the company. Most people got to go home early due to the unsafe snow storm that has started, but everyone in my department was told that their safety isn't... their first priority. I don't know how much longer myself, or really anyone else, can take this. Upper management has created an overall feeling of anxiety and depression. Everyone is scared of being fired. Just because they can legally fire people for whatever reason doesn't mean they should use this as a scare tactic to manipulate department metrics. Bottom line: THIS IS NO WAY TO RUN A DEPARTMENT.

Advice to Management

TREAT US LIKE WE ARE A PART OF THIS COMPANY. Right now, you have a large department of people who are SO SCARED of losing their jobs. I have seen some people cry on their breaks because of this. I hope that they turn this around and create the work environment for us that they create for literally everyone else.

Pros

Some good in-office perks, good healthcare, great peers

Cons

Complete misalignment when it comes to sales career. Management focuses too much on making sellers do administrative work - answering support calls, dealing with cancellations. It takes away time from selling. Monthly quotas are extremely short sighted. All real software companies have annual or quarterly sales goals. You aren’t allowing your sellers to think strategically and grow customer relationships for larger... deals. Zillow promotes employees to managers who hit sales quota, most don’t make good managers - they have no experience coaching or advising rather just focus on looking good to upper management.

Advice to Management

Create a Customer Success team - all functionaling software companies have one. That team’s focus is to drive customer retention, handle customer complaints, train on product. This allows sales to do what they are hired to do - SELL! Allow employees to work remotely one off if they need to. Selling is over the phone and can be done remotely in certain circumstances - especially over a holiday when customers... (brokers) most certainly aren’t working. Do away with monthly quotas and focus on quarter or annual

Pros

The benefits at Zillow are incomparable to any other benefits I have ever been offered. Health is amazing as they have a customized plan at includes low deductible ($250) and low copays of $15 for visits. Referrals are not required so there’s no headache when scheduling appointments. The plan also overs massage therapy, acupuncture, and chiropractor visits. Dental is also very good! Zillow covers half the cost for... braces! Commuter benefits are available Vision covers a good amount $75 gym reimbursement Volunteer opportunities Guided career development Paternity leave and baby bucks Work/life balance Fully stocked kitchen that provides more than enough options for breakfast and lunch. Catered lunches twice a month Food trucks daily so you don’t have to run out on break Workout classes during office hours Relaxed dress code

Cons

The Denver office doesn’t have as many departments as other offices do. Therefore, the growth is really hard if you’re not willing to relocate. The entry position is a very easy CES position which is where most begin their Zillow career. However, there isn’t much of a system to monitor employees. You can be a top performer on your team and/or in the department, and the treatment is the same as the guy sitting next... to you doing half the work but taking double the breaks. They claim this is monitored, but there doesn’t seem to be much managing of the “slackers”. Top performers are rarely recognized by upper management and receive zero incentive for their hard work and dedication to the company. It sucks. As managers are encouraged to help with career development, the room for growth is sparse and the demand is high. A survey is sent out to employees to provide feedback and every time I fill this out, I voice my opinion about compensating top performers and I never ever hear a word about it. They stress “power to the people” and that they hear us, but this topic continues to go unheard. It’s so un-motivating especially to the people who are actually dedicated. Employees are growing frustrated and morale is way down.

Advice to Management

PAC managers should really listen to what their top performers are saying. You know who is dedicated and putting in the work vs. who is just getting by. Take your people more serious. I have been laughed at by a manager who forgot about a career development step that was discussed followed by a “my bad”. Not very professional and made me feel devalued. Every employee should be treated fairly and with respect, yes.... But the person next me who is distracted all day doing minimal work as I make double the calls and stay focused on quantity yet we are viewed the same, no! Please look into making a change and compensating the performers who deserve it.

Pros

Excellent benefits, strong and transparent leadership, balanced workload, excellent teams, rewarding environment.

Cons

The office I worked in was mismanaged during my time at Zillow, due to lack of upper management involvement. That has since been resolved, from what I hear. They also were slow to respond to a harassment claim by one of my coworkers.

Advice to Management

Take harassment claims seriously.

Pros

They still embrace the start up culture, though many departments run like an established corporation. Great perks, if you're on the right team you'll be supported, mentored, and pushed to succeed. There's a lot to learn, room to grow.

Cons

White, male dominated culture. There are lots of other kinds of people, but the upper management is hooked into the frat culture of sales. This gives the feeling of working for a white fraternity. You need to be extroverted to get promoted (being white or male helps too).

Advice to Management

You're doing so many things right. I still gave the company five stars because the con's I've outlined here you're already aware of. I love the D & I work you're doing now, I wish you luck. Please do not give up and become (revert back to being) a white male frat tech company.

Pros

Upper management doesn't always get things right to start but they make things right in the end. At Zillow everything changes quickly and it's really good to know that if something changes to the negative it won't be for long. Free food is awesome Lots of cool groups like basketball, reading, etc

Cons

You have to be okay to change what you do on the day to day quickly but if you're cool with that there aren't many things I would consider a con

Advice to Management

Reps who sell hot should be punished in some way. Tough to see people say 4-6 closings in first 6 months with no basis in contact numbers have high gross sales and get rewarded for selling hot.