eBay

eBay is a stable company that has done good in the past and is now reaping the fruit. Work-life balance is good, no doubt about it.

Things are too slow for most employees' taste. My colleagues and I shared the same thought. Since the eBay-PayPal split, a lot of projects were canceled, and that severely affected employee morale. After the layoffs in early 2015, lots of people left voluntarily. eBay is not growing as fast as most other companies in the Bay Area are. Here, projects come and go in a fraction of a second. You would be working on something very hard, and all of a sudden, your boss tells you this project is scrapped and you should start working on other maintenance work. There is no respect or say for individual contributors. eBay is losing its battle with other big e-commerce giants and is finding it tough to retain top talent for the same reason.

After the split, no major initiative has been taken. Entire 2015 went in poor decision-making and then remaking. Apart from eBay on mobile being in the forefront, I do not see any innovation or willingness to nurture the latest technology and outshine. Senior management is very proud of the money that eBay makes, but the fact is that all that money comes irrespective of the new work that people do. This is a very stable and trusted platform that people have been using for nearly 20 years.

Lastly, too much politics in senior management that treats employees as its pawns.

Focus on employee morale to not lose top talent.

There is a lot of politics in senior management (Director level). Focus on it and see its effects on individual contributors.

Take an initiative and don't feel scared when it doesn't do well in the first few months of product launch. Believe in the people and back engineers.