Pros: You get paid, that's it. I cannot think of anything good about the team. I am not talking about the company; I am talking about the team.

Cons: The so-called new hire team rotation does not exist at all! When they hire, they give such an option. However, once you are placed in a team, you are dead. People: In the whole year, we have had only one team lunch (no outing at all). All my manager knows is to stand behind people and ask how it's going. Those nerds in my team never know how to have a life. All they talk about is going home and watching cartoons, and they are poor in communication with others; all are cynical. When I ask how to find something or can you give me a demo, they would say, "Go Google." Technology: They never know how old their technology is. Java for websites; they are not willing to use new stuff. You cannot find Spark, NoSQL, Redis, Docker, or whatever is industrial standard now. They use SOAP, HTML, Spring, all kinds of dead limbo stuff. Managers generally come for 3 years then leave. No one cares about long-term profit. Stocks: Company missed the market 3 times now, and it is only $50. The revenue is even lower than in 2014. I cannot think of any future. Promotion: Great people leave. My best buddy at the team is not at Google, and I am at another big company. When we reunite and talk, we both agree that managers do not know how to promote the right people. Salary raises cannot even counter inflation. People's titles do not even change after 3 years. Energy: I can only see people in their 40s in manager positions, which makes the whole company not energetic at all.

Pros: Vibrant culture and engaged employees create a positive working environment. Demographically very diverse, especially for a tech company. Neat product. Fantastic benefits. Great industry.

Cons: The tech stack was overly complicated and chained to technical debt. Tech practices were not terribly sophisticated; code reviews and unit tests were just getting some traction. The software process was very informal and kind of disorganized.

Pros: When I joined, TripAdvisor had an incredibly strong engineering culture. The company hired highly talented, capable people who were skilled not only technically but also in communication and teamwork. As a new engineer, it was almost intimidating to sit in meetings with such experienced colleagues. Expectations were high, but in a positive way. You felt pushed to grow, and over time, you realized you belonged there and had the potential to meet that standard. The general culture was excellent. Most colleagues were supportive, helpful, and genuinely invested in team success. It was a non-toxic, friendly environment built on mutual respect. Work-life balance was solid, and management rarely pushed people to work beyond normal hours. Although the tech stack was outdated when I joined, the company committed significant resources to modernizing it. By the time I left, the technical infrastructure had improved dramatically, which made everyday engineering work smoother and more efficient. Career growth opportunities were strong. Salaries and benefits were competitive, the learning budget was generous, and professional development was encouraged. Remote flexibility was well supported, and managers were generally understanding of personal circumstances.

Cons: The COVID-19 pandemic devastated the travel industry, and TripAdvisor was hit especially hard. The layoffs that followed were massive and reshaped the engineering organization overnight. The company lost an enormous amount of talent, including many of the most experienced engineers and leaders who carried crucial domain knowledge. Morale collapsed, and a wave of voluntary departures continued for months afterward. Since then, the company has never fully recovered. What used to be a cohesive culture gradually unraveled. Promotions came quickly for those who remained, but the lack of seasoned people to guide technical strategy became a long-term liability. Engineering depth and continuity suffered. What followed was a long series of reorganizations. For years now, it has felt like the company reshuffles its structure once or twice every year. Reorgs became a running joke internally. Each one disrupted team focus, slowed productivity, and forced everyone to adapt to new priorities and leadership structures before the last changes had even settled. There is also a huge operational cost to constant reorganization that often goes unacknowledged. Every reshuffle requires teams to rename themselves, recreate security groups, rebuild access structures, migrate permissions, reorganize Slack channels, update dashboards, adjust on-call rotations, reassign repos, and fix ownership mappings. Weeks of engineering time get spent on this instead of actual product work, and by the time things stabilize, another reorg is already looming. Across multiple rounds of layoffs, the company continued losing some of its most capable and seasoned engineers. Many people who were central to the culture and success of the company either left voluntarily or were laid off based on cost considerations rather than performance. Watching some of the strongest colleagues walk out the door year after year felt surreal. The knowledge gaps widened, productivity slipped, and the once strong engineering identity faded. Innovation stalled. Several new product attempts never gained traction, and large technical initiatives were abandoned mid-way at significant cost. Strategic direction became inconsistent, and communication from senior leadership often felt vague or misaligned across layers of the organization. Meanwhile, the stock price declined to historic lows, reflecting the lack of a clear long-term strategy and growing market uncertainty.