Wayfair reviews

3.1

39% would recommend to a friend

(6,849 total reviews)
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Niraj Shah

28% approve of CEO

27% positive business outlook

Wayfair has an employee rating of 3.1 out of 5 stars, based on 6,849 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Wayfair employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Ventas al mayoreo y al menudeo industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

7K reviews
1.0
Dec 9, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay is market average, benefits are good, stock options (if you last that long), some people are nice and helpful

Cons

This is by far the most disorganized company I ever worked at. Nobody knows what is going on. You ask for answers and usually get nothing. Most teams will ignore others. Complaining will usually result in reprimand. Do not trust anybody. Coworkers will act like your friend, then use anything you say against you. Employees should act like robots, be politically correct, attend after hours gatherings, and laugh at the stupidest jokes, just to fit in. The company is growing extremely fast, yet coworkers and supervisors are absolutely clueless with what is going on. When opening a new location, they order significant more equipment than is needed without bothering to check if another site already has it. Wayfair is trying hard to be Amazon, that is, opening a new warehouse every month, but the company is horribly in debt and the stock has been bombing. Turn over is insane in the call center and warehouse. Everybody is expendable. Nobody is valuable. They will fire for saying anything back to a lead or supervisor, not bowing down to those in authority, or even small mistakes. I saw it happen weekly. I ordered some equipment that took several months to arrive, and when I voiced a complaint about delays, my supervisor reprimanded me and said to be more polite to the vendor. Since when is taking several months acceptable? Almost every request I made took a minimum of one month, but most never happened. Stock options are nearly impossible to get. An employee must remain at the company a minimum of 1 year, but a total of 4 years to get the 420 shares which are discussed after being hired. Also, there are only 4 times during the year, each with a 2 week window, that an employee can sell the shares, otherwise get fired. So even though you own the stocks, Wayfair controls when you can sell them. If you aren't happy, smiling, telling others how wonderful every day is, then you are considered an outcast and bringing others down. There is no growth here. People who were quitting had been in the exact same position for 2+ years. Most positions are dead end. As horribly disorganized as this company is, I'm amazed shipments go out daily and they don't lose merchandise.

2.0
Nov 17, 2018

Manager

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Interesting projects - Smart co-workers

Cons

- New forced employee calibaration syatem. Directors need to have a certain number of employees in their department rated as a 1 on a 1 - 5 scale and basically those employees are fired. - Lots if uncomfortable employees as a decent percentage are fired. - Not the best pay even as company grows so quickly

2.0
Apr 10, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great culture. It is very friendly and we managed to keep the red tape down pretty well as we grew. In infrastructure engineering there is no room for slackers, but you will have fun at work too. That being said, Wayfair's culture is not so amazing that you won't find similar elsewhere. - Modern tech. Maybe not cutting edge, but certainly very recent. You will be bombarded with job offers from recruiters after a couple Wayfair projects under your belt. At least in Engineering. - Back bay office location is very convenient from public transit. - Steve and Niraj (the founders) are really smart and know exactly where they want to go and how to get there. Learn everything you can from them.

Cons

tl;dr: don't expect to be paid what you could easily get elsewhere. All of this is from the perspective of the engineering department: The pay is laughably low compared to companies looking for similar talent. Turnover is a serious problem. Employees and lower management have brought this to upper management attention, but they have responded with "that's not going to change." This has been going on for years, and management occasionally applies band aides to keep people from leaving in droves. Here's why: The personnel strategy is to hire tons of bright kids fresh out of college for pennies, with a bare minimum of experienced folks to corral them. They sell them on the "startup experience", which Wayfair decidedly is not, and has not been for many many years. Recruiting even goes so far to up sell the "stock options", which amount to a couple grand vested over 5 years. That's right. It's about $500 per year (if that), and the recruiters make it out to be like investing in Apple in the 70's. After about two years under their belts, these kids start hearing about the career growth of their friends, and especially the pay raises. The best ones leave, and experience a 50-100% raise in their salaries. I'm not exaggerating about that. I wish I was. I have had several friends who interviewed elsewhere in order to get Wayfair to propose at least a competitive counter offer. Wayfair refused, and so they left, despite not really wanting to leave. I received a similar increase when I left. For those experienced folks, there isn't much movement in the career chain, so there really isn't anywhere to go. Most of the management is made up of folks that have been there since when Wayfair really WAS a startup. Most of the early employees who would have moved on to another opportunity have already done so, and the ones that remain have no plans to leave. The only way for the technically brilliant folks (who do exist there) to get the pay they would see elsewhere is to go into management, where they usually perform poorly. There is no viable "technical career path" like other companies. Don't be fooled by the rationalization that Boston is an expensive city to live in. It is, but you will get much better pay at other companies in Boston. Think about that when you want to rent a halfway decent apartment or maybe own a house someday.

Viewing 79 - 81 of 6,849 Reviews

Glassdoor has 7,870 Wayfair reviews submitted anonymously by Wayfair employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Wayfair is right for you.