Pros: If you have the opportunity to work with the Walmart.com team, you'll learn what's involved in running a multi-billion dollar website. There are a lot of moving pieces, and learning about the function of each one in the development, release, and customer lifecycle is very rewarding. Some of the more interesting teams to work with come from outside acquisitions. These teams are not mired in the bureaucracy created by the way things used to be done. Also, there are a lot of opportunities for data science within the @Labs teams. If you have a strong manager, you will do okay in the "alignment" process for raises. If your manager is weak, you will get screwed.

Cons: Where to begin... There is a huge lack of accountability for the success of projects at all levels. Years of work can be thrown out because of poor planning and coordination between teams. The current breakdown of Web Operations, Services, and Markets is failing miserably. Poor leadership and no clear vision have led to teams working on products with no clear customers in mind. The success rate for any of the new "pangaea" projects is non-existent. It's definitely not a meritocracy within Engineering. Your relationship with the executive team will determine how high you move up within the organization. Web Operations is a total mess. The failure of the business rests a great deal on their shoulders, with Services following quickly behind. Contractors continue to fill empty seats. The employee to contractor ratio is incredible. If you work on any of the customer properties (Walmart.com, Sams.com), write off your holidays. Engineering is on call 100% and typically onsite. At some point, Bentonville is going to look at what they are getting for their money, and there will be a major reorganization.

Pros: The @Labs is open to using open-source and cutting-edge technologies. Office facilities are good.

Cons: The upper management are technocrats who are unskilled in management and execution. As a direct consequence, the director-level management is busy doing turf wars and building empires. Forget promotion unless you are a director's crony or willing to be their lieutenant. The lower-level managers are specifically hired to be spineless yes-men, and that's exactly who they are. In other words, if you want to join Walmart Labs, be a Director or a Director's friend. There are very few A-list technical players. Most serious developers stay away from the company, and good for them. The interview process is very disorganized and mediocre. Mediocre people get hired. There are people (friends of directors, of course) who do nothing but quote poetry and not get fired. In general, expectations are very low. But don't expect to be promoted, even if you beat expectations 100-fold. For that, you need to be a director's friend. Scrum is sort of practiced but is a joke. Product Owners are very weak and report to the same manager, or even are the managers. Needless to say, this is a huge non-starter for real Scrum. Due to the inability of upper management to execute, coordination between teams is non-existent. In fact, cross-team interactions are solely politics-driven. Unrealistic expectations are given to teams to code, test (QA hardly exists), and support applications full-time. If you want to deploy complex infrastructure, it is pretty much your responsibility. Don't expect anybody from management to think about support capacity, or to think about anything at all. There is no perceptible culture and no fun. Yes, if you are lucky, you can get a chance to work on a challenging project; however, don't expect it to be used due to mis-execution at upper levels. So, if your idea of a job is fighting fires and being left without proper compensation, this is it.

Pros: Pay, pay, pay, pay, pay.

Cons: None