Airbnb

• Pay and most benefits are well above industry average.
• Business & brand is strong.
• Most of the tech stack is pretty sophisticated, so it’s good for keeping skills up.

The culture is avoidant of honest feedback; people would prefer you keep criticisms to yourself.

It’s unclear what responsibilities middle management has, or how to hold anyone accountable.

Career advancement is limited due to how promotions are evaluated. Pressure for “large scope” criteria motivates engineers to invent flashy but costly/unnecessary initiatives. Priorities are misaligned with the business. Managers pressure ICs to find a way to promotion without any real path actually existing.

Most middle managers are promoted from IC roles and don’t know what good management looks like, and are given no training.

There is the least amount of task visibility or project organization of any company I’ve worked for. This leads to a lack of shared sense of accomplishment and siloing of work.

Company recently switched to a top-down decision-making strategy (I.e., waterfall), so engineers are even more siloed and have fewer opportunities for visibility & collaboration. Design often doesn’t factor in cost to build.

Especially with the top-down product strategy, it’s critical for project organization to be rock-solid. For that to happen, management needs to have clear responsibilities and be held accountable for supporting their ICs to do their best work.

Managers promoted from IC roles without management experience should have formal training available. Be realistic and honest about advancement opportunities, and make sure the career track reflects any business limitations.