Airbnb Employee Reviews about "growing pains"

Pros

Executive leadership is deeply screened, well experienced, ethical, and caring. This has kept the culture healthy from a top down perspective. Company culture is and always has been amazing. This has set the bar for leadership.

Cons

Going through the common growing pains of becoming a big, public company. Departments are learning to work with each other, but it is a slow process.

Pros

- Compensation: pays more than any other tech company (Google, FB, etc) PLUS new cash bonus PLUS can choose to take your equity refreshers (no cliff) in cash. They also bump everyone to above midpoint of the range, which is really kind and close any gaps for pay equity. - Business is doing really well: we're profitable, have money to invest in employees + new ventures, never worried about money. Not even having a round of funding for this far out is amazing. - Great benefits. Free airbnb credits (never expire), lots of PTO and time off, easy parking lot next to the building (they reimburse the price), free lyft credits, top notch food program, etc. - Management is honest about their pitfalls and is honest about fixing it. I appreciate this because they could sweep it under the rug. - We're heavily invested in our infrastructure as a 2019 focus. Even hired a CTO who has decades of infrastructure heavy lifting under his belt. Sweet! - People are really kind and helpful. Fairly rare. There are always going to be politics because people befriend eachother, but honestly you can set up a meeting with a director and they will help you resolve easily. As long as you speak out, people will listen.

Cons

Typical growing pains for our size, honestly. For a long time, Airbnb was flat and you could grow your career quickly since the company was small. Now they're trying to add ways to grow your career and make it defined and achievable since there's not low hanging fruit from a flat org, which is good. There's also increased attrition for people who have been here 5-7+ years, but honestly I think fresh people who are excited and new have been better for my team personally. Many managers are also junior, but we've started to hire senior managers - my manager's manager has been doing a great job shaping and changing, which I appreciate.

Pros

Airbnb is genuine and honest. Pursuing, not only, the betterment of their employees and customers but the global world. Airbnb aims to create a world where you can belong anywhere.

Cons

Airbnb's hypergrowth has caused growing pains at times and being an employee means that you're along for that ride and all that comes along with it.

Pros

advanced cutting edge technology. great culture

Cons

growing pains, senior management is a little bit of mess

Pros

Worked with a lot of wonderful people, had great benefits, and was able to maintain pretty good work life balance.

Cons

A lot of growing pains. High stress. Work life balance takes effort.

Pros

- Genuinely supportive and invested coworkers - Founders are very focused on not stagnating as we grow - Engineers can choose their own team, so you can find a team that suits you in terms of work-life balance / productivity. There's no global company culture of "workaholics" or "slackers", you really can just find the right role for you - Similarly, it's easy to find the kind of eng role you prefer (product, front-end, infra, etc) - Diversity efforts are the best I've ever seen or heard of in a large tech company. Estaff is very committed to increasing our internal diversity and also making sure there are no problems with discrimination of any kind. (Our mission is "belong anywhere" and leadership takes that very very seriously, including internally.) - Leadership is constantly working to fix any employee issues that arise, we take tons of happiness surveys and have lots of communication on how they're planning to improve things that are issues - Basically Airbnb has always seemed very committed to employee happiness, via perks and transparency and inclusion, and it works!

Cons

- Sometimes the growing pains can get frustrating and things can move kind of slow, but in my experience it's better than most companies this size - Gym memberships are not included in perks

Pros

Great employee benefits and perks. A lot of capitol is spent on making the workspace and services top notch with fun environment. Many many projects to work on and if you like varied task and job roles that are in flux, which change quite a bit as your role is better defined this is the place to find your worth. It's quite a swim or sink place. Common exciting "start-up company" things abound which do keep fresh ideas and a bit zaniness in the daily work routine. Over the past few years the leadership has worked to start adding clear goals that can be translated to the team level. There is a measure of accountability. Amazing to work with three founders were are very much involved with the company's direction and mission. Lots of investment in the future, the cash is being burned but for growth and R&D needs.

Cons

Lots of growing pains due to being young, and moving very vast. Can seem like ever shifting priorities and sometimes murky communication. Often can be very hard to find critical info and engage key teams/resources due to contention of priorities.

Pros

- Great food (breakfast, lunch, dinner, and amazing snacks) -A plethora of opportunities to travel the world - Impressive name on your resume

Cons

Promises are made again and again and there is no follow-up. You can't trust your manager, and to make it worse, you have an abundance of inexperienced managers that unfortunately are not given the tools they need to succeed. Airbnb is bleeding money and talent, and it doesn't know how to fix it. The level of bureaucracy is unacceptable for a company its age and size. It behaves like a company of 100,000 employees, when it only has 3,000. The growing pains are being felt all over the company, and people are discouraged. I wish I had a real perspective of what was happening on the inside before accepting my offer. The culture is (or was) amazing, but it won't be enough to make you happy amidst this mess.

Pros

This company is like a huge family, where everyone is empowered to make an impact. We work together to champion the mission, embrace the adventure, get work done, and to have fun in and outside of work. It is such an inspiring place to me on a daily basis, and I believe so much in the work we are doing. Brian, Nate and Joe are also some of the most inspiring people I have worked for and they genuinely care about personal and professional growth. I can say with confidence that this is the best company I have ever worked for...and I spent a long time at Apple and a recruiting startup. My team is very driven but is also really adamant about work/life balance and my manager supports me in my personal and professional goals. I could probably go on and on and on...but I think you get the idea.

Cons

Like all companies that are growing quickly, we have our growing pains...but that's why you have to embrace the adventure and keep on your toes to work here and be successful.

Pros

1. Inspiring vision & mission 2. Meaningful work, we are changing lives everyday with what we do! 3. Our founders walk the talk, they are the living examples of what they preach! 4. Great products, I fall in love working with it everyday! 5. What you do matters regardless of what roles you play and its valued by people 6. Lots of appreciation, pat on the shoulders, high fives, warm hugs! 7. Engaging & hospitable culture - one of our core values, BE A HOST! 8. Fun place to work ❤️ 9. Great learning platform 10. The sky is the limit! 11. Open & communicative environment 12. A lot of heart and soul, human touches in everything we do! 13. Teamwork is evident ( not a make believe) 14. You can be yourself, just the way you are! 15. Mega flexibility at work

Cons

1. Young leadership - needs to work on coaching leaders to be more effective in coaching and leading individuals 2. Growing pains, rapid changes and it can happen daily but if you love challenges, this is the place to work! 3. A need to Tighten internal communications between teams to foster clearer directions and stronger partnerships