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Politics first, bad technology second.

Principal Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Zillow for 2 years
September 4, 2020
Seattle, Washington
2.0
Doesn't RecommendPositive OutlookApproves of CEO
Pros

Most of the people I work with on a day-to-day basis are great.

The scope of responsibility has given me career growth opportunities.

Products we work on are generally user-centric and making real estate better for consumers.

Cons

Politics, politics everywhere! A day doesn't go by where some political statement is made by senior leadership or an event being held that's political in nature. Our all-hands meetings are either entirely political or mostly political. I'm burned out by it in my personal life; I don't need it in my professional life, where it doesn't belong in the first place.

The technology is insanely bad. One would think that a nationally recognized brand that is top of class would have good technology, or at least not bad technology.

Does not have good technical leadership or talent. There are certainly pockets of grade-A engineers, but they seem few and far between. In addition, there doesn't ever seem to be technological advancements across the company. The status quo is perfectly acceptable at Zillow. It also seems that they push talented engineers out the door via their comp package and slow movement.

A 4-year signing bonus cliff is a killer of top talent and tribal knowledge. Review grants come nowhere near replacing signing bonus compensation, and most take a huge pay cut at the 4-year mark, or devalue their promotions/reviews of the past.

Advice to Management

Please leave politics out of work. It's immensely distracting and polarizing. Your views don't represent the views of all your employees, and it's frankly in poor taste. Your complaints about "the unheard voices" are hypocritical at best.

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