Wayfair

Somewhat decent pay and benefits.

Fast-paced company with a lot to do.

Some great team members.

Awful management.

High turnover, resulting in a constant need to start over on strategic goals.

Poisonous office politics.

Entrenched groups that are afraid to work outside their silos, as collaboration is not encouraged or rewarded.

An office so overcrowded that just finding a bathroom can be a daunting task.

The culture is disingenuous at best, to outright lying at worst. You are thrown into the grinder with almost no training or integration and expected to learn as you go. You are told that mistakes are okay; however, mistakes are anything but okay and are instead held against you from day one. The entire workforce is paranoid of having any creative thought or pursuing any collaboration due to the nature of that culture. Staying in your lane and doing as little as possible to branch out are highly encouraged, as is having to ask 20 times for simple tasks to be completed by other teams.

Even as a senior engineer, it was still only possible to get movement on a number of processes by escalating to higher management, who seem to want to keep a stranglehold on all decisions, no matter how small.

Your disorganized management style is a disservice to your talented employees. It's understandable that strategic goals shift, but the lack of communication in that environment is unforgivable. Guidance is needed to get the most out of your personnel, not vague goals and mission statements. I can't say I enjoyed my time there at all, and certainly will not miss it.

With the record number of employees that are currently working at Wayfair and have been there for less than a year, a reckoning is soon coming if you do not find a way to structure management to serve your employees instead of itself.