Yahoo

Good company. Good people. Salary is reasonable.

Promotions are hard to get since there are thousands of software engineers. Most teams have their managers who do what needs to be done to keep going. The culture of giving freedom to innovate and encouraging innovation without fear of losing the job is simply not there.

Very sad story, compared with AOL and Yahoo in their heyday. It seems that once the visionaries leave and regular management takes over the administration, this is what happens to every company.

Standard Dilbert fare.

1. With so many engineers, it's very hard to get a promotion in the company. This needs to be figured out in order to keep talent.

2. Even after several attempts, new (great!) management, etc., the company has been on a down slope for a very long time. Especially in Advertising, competing with Google and Facebook, it is really hard to bring in new business.

Please consider empowering developers to do new things and actively encouraging innovation. No one wants to do these things because they have their goals, making managers happy, and putting in standard KPI verbiage in annual reviews so they are not targeted in the next annual layoff.

You have had this feedback before, but I don't see any changes on the ground, though it may look like it due to the glut of emails and a compulsion to overcommunicate.

Let everyone know about what real problems are out there to be solved, and folks will get to it! Maybe have frequent competitions. Something.