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Strong developers, some very clever people in the ranks, but poor leadership

Android Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at Yahoo for 2 years
March 21, 2015
London, England
3.0
Doesn't RecommendNegative OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

The culture in the London office is great. There's good opportunity for professional growth, including encouragement to go to many conferences and to experiment with new technologies and ideas. There are also some great perks. Many of the developers are incredibly smart.

Cons

The company is focused around the head office in California, to the point where they can't imagine anyone contributing from outside.

There's a very heavy-handed technical leadership who try to micromanage every process of all teams.

Advice to Management

Give people the freedom to use the best tools for them to do their job, not the best tools for Yahoo's leadership. If you have to force people to use something, look at why people resist so much and consider if that product really is going to help them do their job. If you need all employees to dogfood something, to the point where you can't cope with the level of feedback, then something is very wrong in that product's development process.

Also be aware that most of the technical talent in the world isn't in Silicon Valley and maybe doesn't want to go there. Having a lot of financial and emotional investment in other development offices in other regions, or even allowing people to work from home, would be a massive benefit to Yahoo.

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