Wayfair

5.0

May 12, 2011

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

- Fantastic Benefits - Great work environment - The people are generally very nice and very capable - Easy access to everyone in the company (including upper management) - Huge amount of responsibility given to new engineers - If you want to work on something specific and you ask for it, they will make it happen - Equity in the company - Excellent pay if you demonstrate that you are worth it - Your changes will be seen by millions of people each month - The company/department is always open to better ways of doing things if you suggest them in a respectful way Overall CSN is an amazing place to work, and your happiness level at the company is completely in your control. In tech they will throw you into the fire right away and expect a lot of you, but if you can deliver then the company will take care of you. The people who succeed here are outgoing, creative, and willing to put in effort to do well. If you just want to punch a clock, slack off on your work, and expect to get raises then you should look elsewhere. CSN truly is a meritocracy, and if you are a valuable asset to the company then you will be rewarded for that.

Cons

Things move so quickly that it can feel a bit out of control at times, and sometimes valuable projects get put onto the back burner because we just don't have time for them. This also means that people at all levels in the organization need to take initiative to get things done, since management doesn't always have time to hold your hand through every project. There are some other minor growing pains, software is adding a ton of new engineers and so the group is a little bottom heavy. This means less oversight and slightly reduced quality control. This gets better every day though, so not a big concern.

5.0

May 12, 2017

Software engineer

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Wayfair is a fantastic company if you're a software engineer who's looking to keep quiet, and not speak up when management treats you like garbage. And it excels at finding leaders who are willing to go the extra mile to be untrustworthy and make you feel like your job isn't safe (and for real, it's not).

Cons

Let's talk. The company has been growing like crazy, and one thing that was never thought about was "can we actually hire at a sustainable rate, and scale accordingly?" The answer was no on both counts. Software engineers at Wayfair have a history of disappearing. People who enter labs have an especially low success rate (70% make it through, and less than 50% last a whole year). It's basically their way to run people through a burnout gauntlet, and see who survives. And then you have the stories of the people who come in to work and are just asked to resign. You'll see hints of it here on Glassdoor if you dig, and it's even worse than what you read. They actually gathered all the engineers for a big meeting at the beginning of this year. And they said that they were sorry that people felt scared and were sad that people felt like management didn't care. Which is exactly how we felt. They promised that their door was open, and they were going to work hard to set things right. One person out of 500 stood up and asked a really cutting question. AND THEN THEY FIRED HIM! And there were 3 completely different official reasons given about it. It's crazy. The leaders also started up an engineering meeting to keep everyone on the same page and answer anonymous questions. One time someone asked why we couldn't get snow days off, because it was tough to shovel for 3 to 4 hours and still work an 8 hour day. So the leaders proceeded to talk down to us and reprimand us for even thinking about asking a question like this. Turnover has been high over the past year, and the best people are leaving. This worries management, but they still have no idea that the problem is actually them creating a terrible environment. So if you're a good person who cares about the person next to you and leaving things better than you found them, don't bother applying here. But if you're not, and you just want to keep your head down and not question anything, then this is the perfect place for you. And if that's what you want, Wayfair gets 5 stars. Amazing career opportunities if you want to have the same job forever. Incredible senior management that value untrustworthiness. A fantastic culture of watching people next to you disappear. It's truly a perfect company.

915

Wayfair Response

First, I wanted to thank you for providing feedback. Second, I am very sorry to hear that your experience was far from ideal. I know it can be hard to give feedback if you feel management is the problem, but leadership would love to learn about these issues to refine the Wayfair employee experience. We do try to create an open and transparent environment; one thing we’ve started doing is department-wide anonymous surveys. This has been helpful in identifying issues where people don’t feel comfortable speaking up for whatever reason and pinpoint where any issues may exist. As you noted, the company is growing very quickly - our Engineering team alone has grown tenfold over the past five years. I won’t pretend we get it right all the time, but we do aim to scale our teams and our systems reasonably to meet the rapid growth of our business, and we rely on employee feedback to refine these processes. To that end, we’ve put a lot of time and energy into our interview process. And, we closely track our voluntary and involuntary attrition rates to make sure we are keeping high employee retention and so that we can immediately nip any potential issues in the bud. For Wayfair Labs, we’ve made huge strides since the beginning of this program, and our average success rate is now over 90%, with several classes at 100%. We also run management trainings on giving, receiving and soliciting feedback. In these trainings - and in general - we encourage respect for all teammates and partners, communication and collaboration, and we try create opportunities for people to take on new challenges. I am very excited about the work we’re doing to solve tough challenges and there’s an exciting opportunity for our employees to do big things – our goal is to build a team that feels encouraged and empowered to do so. I’m very sorry you didn’t have the experience we try to cultivate. Once again, thank you for this feedback.

If you work hard the sky is the limit - Software Engineer Wayfair Employee Review

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