Zillow

A strong focus on equity and belonging is transforming many aspects of the company.

Much work has gone into modernizing the tech stack. Depending on the team, you might find your tool chain and frameworks pleasant to work with (though there's still loads of legacy code lying around; it just depends on the team).

Lots of opportunity to move up through the ranks with so many departures.

As a new employee, you may be able to negotiate a nice package. This is critical because, once you're in, HR will clamp down hard on your compensation adjustments, even for top performers.

Many of us joke that we should leave for a startup for a few months then come back in order to get a raise.

So many people leave; we have dubbed Fridays as "Farewell Fridays".

Massive cost-cutting is happening everywhere. Most of the perks that existed when I started are long gone. If you are coming from a non-tech company, the current benefits are probably par for the course. Just think of Zillow as a traditional real estate company now, not a tech company.

At the time of this writing, Zillow is hemorrhaging money in the Zillow Offers business and seems to be cutting everything possible to slow the bleeding. Related, if you are working in a part of the company not focused on the Offers business, expect to be severely resource-constrained. I suppose you could romanticize this as the rest of the business is getting lean and might rekindle a "start-up feel"—just a start-up without much funding or perks...

Many people do not know what they are working on. There are secretive, vague ideas and seemingly quarterly org changes. Many in the "know" have little to no roadmap or direction to share with most of their team.

Of many parts of the company, it feels like they don't want the stigma of layoffs, so instead, they are cutting benefits, lowering bonuses, etc., in order to force people out. Multiple managers have discussed waiting for certain people to leave.

Wow. I mean, it's basically a dumpster fire. I feel like ever since the CEO change, it's been a rapid downhill fall. If I had to suggest just one thing, it would be to bring back "turn on the lights" as a core value, in practice, not just in name. Trust is lost on a massive scale here.