eBay

Some friendly and collaborative co-workers

• Like something out of a Dilbert cartoon
• Poor, depressing culture
• Long hours
• Terrible middle managers
• Heavy "butt covering," "me me me," and command-and-control attitude of managers
• Managers watched your time like you were an hourly worker
• No arrival/departure time flexibility
• Pay 10-15% below market at the time (2008-2010)
• Co-workers not that smart. Couldn't learn anything from them.
• Very outdated software stack
• No room for innovation
• Product Managers ruled, and they weren't very good.

I suffocated in this work environment (I was a new grad). I dealt with jealousy from co-workers and managers, was constantly micromanaged and boxed-in, and was never given any real room to try new things, learn new things, do new things, or implement things differently. Every attempt to do something new was met with talk that I didn't know what I was doing, or was squashed for some other reason.

The managers constantly insisted that I didn't know how to do A and that I didn't know how to do B, even though I clearly knew. They went to great lengths to ensure that I would never get an opportunity to do them to "prove myself." The managers were obsessed with knowing and commenting on the time I got into work and the time I left. They would harass me about this (and any random thing they could find), rather than leave me to do my work.

Company culture needs work, and so does the software that powers the site.