bureaucracy, large hierarchy of managers - Software Development Engineer II Expedia Group Employee Review

2.0
22 Aug 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- benefits, salary - technology stack in some teams - rotation opportunity

Cons

- bias - judgemental managers: they keep watching you - long hierarchy of LTs and managers, every 1 person out of 20 is director. SDEs are 7-8 deep long from CEO. - if you know people, you get opportunities. even the external hackathon (IATA) opportunities are networking based - SDEs can be seen praising the managers, because of this bias and favouritism. - Managers can say - this is 2 hour job, why is it taking long. - Because of this you will find unnecessary tech without design considerations, and new people get busy justifying it, or removing it. It took 1 month for a person to add cache, and 1.5 years for people after to discuss to remove it because it is not solving problem. Nevertheless the person who added in 1 month got promoted. - speed matters while work, not quality in many teams, some managers are real badass. - no firing for LTs because they are like government, they do decisions. - keep LT hierarchy simple. Remove unnecessary roles in LTs. I've 5 people who are interested to know my status in LTs. One wants to start AB test, another wants to talk to external directors if I have any question. Keep it developer driven culture not LT driven.

Explore other reviews about Expedia Group

5.0
4 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- good benefits - depending on team great culture

Cons

Not every team is the same

2.0
29 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Constant state of transformation is ripe environment for new hires and functional experts from big name tech companies

Cons

Pre-covid the culture was really special. Collaborative, engaging, people-centric, with a unifying mission to enable travel for the world. Since covid there has been a revolving door of executive leadership, and with each round, they throw out the current strategy to try something "new" without building from the current or past successes. Constant change, but no clear vision or strategy of what they are trying to change to. Lack of strategy and low risk tolerance leads to too many priorities with not enough investment to move the needle in anything. Quarterly layoffs, but executed quietly team by team so as not to make news. No psychological safety. Talent strategy since covid is to hire externally over internal promotions to gain "functional expertise" therefore difficult to grow your career. Siloed divisions not working towards common goal. Lacks operating model maturity needed for a company of this size likely do to revolving door of execs and priorities. A cash cow company with an identity crisis trying to be an AI innovator. Build vs buy mentality slows them down. Too many exec pet projects that aren't vetted with proper business cases.

4
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