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 Although the tech stack was outdated when I joined, the company committed significant resources to modernizing it.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.

Pros: --Development-- For engineers who are just entering the workforce, TripAdvisor is an awesome place to start a career. The mandate of full-stack development allows engineers to gain crucial experience on many common, though somewhat antiquated, coding frameworks. At TripAdvisor, there are plenty of examples of winning strategies and failing strategies. Observant engineers will learn as much about what not to do in software development as they will about what to do, and that's not necessarily a bad thing. Experience in both frontend and backend development, along with guidance from talented fellow engineers, will set engineers up well for their next employment jump. --Benefits-- TripAdvisor employees get a $250 once per year personal travel bonus to help compensate a hotel stay or plane ride. The medical package is good for single employees and decent for employees with families. There is free lunch on Mondays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays. --Culture-- There are a lot of very smart people, engineering and otherwise, who are social, friendly, and inviting of newcomers.

Cons: --Environment -- TripAdvisor prides itself on moving quickly; our motto is "Speed Wins". Sadly, that motto is more often used to justify making poor design decisions to quickly finish small projects than on identifying new trends within the industry and acting on them. As a result, many sections of the codebase are in disrepair. Poor code from previous projects often hinders developers' ability to achieve the goals of their current projects and is frustrating to encounter on a deadline. Upper management is also reluctant to spend money and man-power fixing problems that slow down development. --Compensation-- TripAdvisor is a good place to start a career, but it is not a good place to continue one. Hard work is rarely rewarded, and pay raises are relatively flat. Last year's bonus cycle brought modest pay raises that were about on-par with cost-of-living increases. The realization that new hires are compensated on par with or better than employees who have been around and know the codebase creates morale problems. Many engineers here take this as a signal from management that unseasoned engineers are worth as much as current engineers and that career advancement is limited. --Benefits-- Although the company has offices around the world, engineers are discouraged from visiting them. It isn't that the benefits here are bad; it's that there is nothing that really stands out.

Pros: TripAdvisor's first goal in hiring is to hire the person that fits best, so everyone you are working with is great at what they do, and everyone gets along. Catered lunches 3 times a week, a game room with foosball, Xbox, Rock Band, and Wii make for a fun environment. Drinks, snacks, and comfortable open collaboration areas make for a relaxing environment. Put that together with a relaxed approach to schedules, and you have a stress-free work environment. TripAdvisor maintains its nimbleness regardless of how many employees it has, so there is always something new. It is a job you will want to come back to every day.

Cons: The motto is "speed wins", which means something new every week, even every day. While that makes the job interesting, it also makes it a little confusing and hard to keep the various projects you're working on straight. The company has been growing rapidly, despite waiting for the "perfect candidate" for each position and not rushing the hiring. As such, they suffer a bit from the unavoidable growing pains, as any company would. In some respects, things still feel like a small company, but those clash with some of the unavoidable aspects of a large company. Everyone is devoted to easing this as much as possible, but it just takes time.