Sabre reviews

This company has lots of faults. Fundamentally Sabre is broken up into various brands. Sadly these brands don't really play well with one another. The work environment within Sabre Holdings is a bit toxic and not for the faint at heart. Working in any given position is like constantly playing a game of chess and requires the prowess of a seasoned politician. The work environment tends to be hostile. Upper management rarely supports their teams and this is truly a company where the customer is always right, i.e. don't expect any job security. They pay less than their competitors for the same position and offer enticing time off packages. However these packages are primarily "smoke and mirrors" to draw in talent. You will never be allowed to take more than a long weekend off at one time. Even then you would still be required to regularly check emails and join conference calls as required. HR isn't to be trusted, including any employee support services provided by the company. They tend to be somewhat discriminatory against certain protected classes and relate best to "locals". Positions are poorly defined and many employees find themselves signing on for one job but actually given quite something different. Every company struggles from this to an extent but not to the superior level Sabre tends to employee this practice. Benefits aren't the best, particularly health insurance. Fundamentally, being a Texas based company, Sabre does not provide cost of living increases. Therefore you tend to be stuck with what you were hired on, regardless of your length of employment. So negotiate big on the front end as raises, even performance based, are rare. Sabre also employees a ridiculous review scheme which is essentially designed to rate all employees 'average'. Sabre is against making anyone a 'shinning star' so don't expect rave reviews. A schema primarily in place to justify their lack of salary adjustments or raises. Turn over within Sabre is high. They frequently lay entire departments off and are perpetually reorganizing. This provides little to no job security and adds to a stressful work environment. Stress is the key operative within Sabre Holdings, so much that many employees manifest this stress via physical ailments. Employees being hospitalized for stress related causes isn't uncommon and management isn't very sympathetic to their plight. Sabre is also historically poor at promoting from within. They tend to actively recruit new talent and favor 'fresh meat' over seasoned employees. So don't expect to be promoted or even have the ability to move around within the organization easily.

- Pay is low to moderate. If you're just looking for a bigger paycheck, this is not the place (unless you're at the top of the food chain.) - Stuck in the 1990's in so many ways. Technology, design, business process engineering, knowledge management... it's all from a different time when dinosaurs roamed the earth. - "Innovation" is a buzzword but those who use it are usually hypocrites, or simply do not know what real innovation is. If you come up with a good new idea, prepare for the assault of a million reasons why it can't be done. Your idea will not be shut down outright. It will be slowly, agonizingly suffocated until you give up on it and a part of your soul dies with it. - On the off-chance that your new idea is partially adopted, it will be butchered by a dozen middle managers who don't share your exact vision and turn it into something else. But most likely, your idea won't even be partially adopted. - Not a good place for technical or creative people to grow professionally. You can learn how to design or code like it's 1999, though. - Sabre hires software developers in offices around the world. They go for quantity, not quality. Many of the developers and software architecture people are under qualified and are difficult to work with. You can't expect very much from them. But they are cheaper by the dozen. - The business suits don't understand technology, and definitely don't value or understand experience design. Even basic tech or design concepts are reduced to simplistic catchphrases or ideas that don't carry real understanding. When business decisions are made based on buzzwords or reductive logic, bad things happen. But all of this is generally okay, because at least for now most Sabre customers are at this level, too. The blind leading the blind in this industry. - The further down the org chart you are, the less traction you will have getting your ideas adopted. The corporate hierarchy stifles positive change like a thick blanket. "Don't rock the boat" is the unspoken mantra. - Office politics rules the day. Merit or competence has nothing to do with influence. It's the good old boy system in full force. - Internal tools will suck the life out of you. I had to submit my time to three different software tools. They were all terrible to use. Management seemed okay with this. This is a microcosm of the inefficient, nonsensical, broken, stifling, or backwards way many things are done internally. - Every department is its own silo. There is no incentive to collaborate, share resources or ideas, or consolidate anything. Everyone is lord of his own kingdom, and scared to lose that tiny sphere of influence. The corporate culture rewards this. - Sabre solutions are regarded by customers as a "bucket of parts." There is no consistency from one product team to the next. There is an incredible amount of redundancy. There is no holistic vision to present a truly unified set of solutions to our customers (just the veneer of consistent branding, somewhat.) Everyone knows this is a problem and talks about it. Not enough is being done to fix this problem because that would mean changing the way things are done. Someone would probably lose some level of control over their department or their product, and they will fight tooth and nail to prevent that from happening. So things stay the way they are: virtually identical Sabre products are developed in isolation and come out looking like they were made by completely different companies. Customers notice. - The company is successful to its own detriment. In some areas, it dominates the industry. This means there isn't much external pressure to grow or change. This is why I say Sabre is stuck in the 1980's. People don't like change, and when you don't feel a lot of pain, you're just more comfortable leaving things the way they are -- even when the rest of the world has moved on. - After some time inside, you start to realize that commercial air travel is an awful experience largely because stuck-in-a-rut companies like Sabre are running things behind the scenes. - In a word: mediocrity. Everything is mediocre. Good ideas might surface, but they will be ground up and destroyed in the cogs of the corporate machine. By the time eight middle managers are through with it, nothing that actually gets produced is excellent. - Some people get their own desk, many others have "flex" seating (first come, first served.) Facilities moves people around and changes the office configuration frequently, and not always for the benefit of employees. - In the end, it is a boring place to work. Real, positive change is sloooow in coming. People talk things to death and nothing happens. If you just want to put in your time and not deal with much stress, it's okay. If you want excitement, a professional challenge, and real growth as an individual... not so much.