Booking.com

Most of the people that work at the company are amazing. I've even had the opportunity to work with some Amsterdam people, not just the Manchester side, and most are very nice people who care deeply for their job.

There are a bunch of perks – terribly badly advertised – which can be used. Having a yearly bonus is always a good thing, but definitely not enough with remuneration (more on that later).

The tech you work on can vary wildly, but some of the teams do some very interesting stuff. You may end up working on the legacy parts of the company, which I have no description for other than hell.

• There is next to no autonomy. Teams don't get to choose what they will focus on; people are removed and added to the teams like it or not, and as a manager, I get zero say over any of it. Managers are there to "report back" but the reality is your opinion doesn't matter unless you're a director or above.

• Salaries are well below the market average. Engineering Managers are easily 15-20k under market standards; don't get me started about developers. Unless you have newly joined or come with some better negotiating salary so you're good then. Being in the company for more than a year is not rewarded.

• Roadmaps are driven top-down. I'm not a product manager but if I were one, I would not want to work on this side. I don't know how it works with Amsterdam but in Manchester, roadmaps are presented to the team and PMs just have to do whatever they can with it.

• No manager autonomy (cont.). As a manager, I can't decide much around my teams, no salaries, no notice periods; hell, I sometimes don't even get to interview people coming into my team. How are you supposed to do anything is beyond me.

• Even though there's a lot of talk about feedback culture, feedback when applying for internal promotions is next to none, and you move up if you know the right people.

Start trusting your EMs. Just calling a team lead Engineering Manager is not enough; they are close to the teams and know the pulse of what's going on, which you don't.

Pay market rates. Granted, COVID is not making life easy, but Booking is a multi-billion company, so paying people 10-20k less and playing the "be happy you have a job" card is not going to get you far.

Listen to your people. Product Managers should be able to do their job. Right now, even their boss has admitted not having control over the roadmap, so what's the point in hiring them? Might as well stick to Delivery Managers and stop pretending to have Product.