Pros
1. Fun office sometimes. 2. Free snacks. 3. They hire ambitious people. 4. Strong friendships.
Cons
Ineffective leadership that is constantly charging. I have been in cross-functional "manager meetings" where we talk unproductively about why our retention and employee satisfaction rates are so low. Some managers brought up how they can introduce new teammates to the team and how we can give new teammates a signed notebook from the team. There are way more fundamental problems that leadership does not think or want to think about. And, I for one, will take my leadership abilities elsewhere where it is appreciated and heard. Leadership in general across Wayfair is ineffective and have limited experience. Made me question myself who I can learn from and what I am learning after a certain point. Management is constantly changing. I barely had a manager in the time I was there. And when I did, it was ineffective. Being micromanaged was not for me (there was a deck sent out to my teammates and me a few months before I left about what hours you need to work, what to wear, etc. There were even conversations about where to sit during the day if I wasn't at my assigned seat). It was uncalled for but that's the way things were there. I need my freedom to be successful. And coming from places where I had a lot of freedom, I did not find any of this appropriate. Trust your employees, especially if they are already at senior levels and have work experience elsewhere. Diversity is a joke to leadership even though they say it's important. But beware if you ask about diversity because it makes leadership uncomfortable and upset at you. There were inappropriate comments made by colleagues, even those at my level or higher, which is especially toxic. Cross-functional "partnership" is a joke. Design is most definitely not a "partner" to product managers no matter what people say or what smaller teams are like because of how leadership is and what the structure is like. External hires will always be paid more but not the highest among competitors. The office is cool at first but really it feels like you're working in a factory. Rows of seats are packed as closely as possible and it's very noisy. "Collab" spaces are located meters away from people's desks. If you're lucky, there's a whiteboard behind the collab space to block out the sound of the conversation. Pod outings feel forced. Drinking culture. Lots of turnover and comments from the team about how they stopped learning people's names because they are likely to leave anyway. Low team morale because of fundamental problems -- free snacks and Medium articles/blog posts can't cover up all that for long. Some teams might be flexible with working from home but Product Design isn't one of them. According to the deck sent out dictating when and where I should work, the office is always the default. Wfh is reserved for when you're sick (because there are no sick days) or need to deal with something at home. That might sound like flexibility or not matter to some people who haven't experienced real flexibility or don't like working from home. That environment just wasn't for me so I left. I needed a place that would let me do my job. What an experience this was and lesson learned.
