Vrbo Employee Reviews about "expedia acquisition"

Pros

-Actively investing in diversity and inclusion after finally creating a D&I team in 2020. -Travel benefits

Cons

Things have steadily declined over the past two years. HomeAway was a dream company when I joined in 2017 and lost all it’s charm through the Expedia acquisition. I do not recommend joining the company at this time. -We have gone through 3 company re-orgs in the past 2 years. - All the best engineering talent has left due to company instability, corporate red tape, and constant changes. - Women representation in the engineer department is sad and women aren’t promoted as quickly as male peers. - There are inexperienced managers who aren’t given training before giving them leadership roles. - Soo many silos. - Due to covid the company is tight on funds and not adequately taking care of the employees they do have left. No pay increases and limited promotions will not help retain talent who have dedicated their lives to this company during a pandemic.

Pros

Many good people at Vrbo - find out if you will be working for the Vrbo (Distribution) part of the company or the Software (Escapia) part of the company. While there are good people in both divisions, the culture and work expectations are different depending on where you work. Besides the "pro" of some good people you'll be working with, the compensation is competitive with other technology companies.

Cons

The company shift since the Expedia acquisition is to be expected, but there is a misalignment of objectives between Distribution and Software that leads to missed expectations and uncertainty. The Software org is silo'd and senior leadership struggles, which negatively impacts the teams. With the layoffs, particularly the latest round aimed at long-term knowledgeable employees not in Austin, morale is low in Austin, Seattle, and Sydney. The uncertainty and lack of alignment is increasing, and staff don't feel confident about the level of transparency from senior management. The focus on Escapia Software customer service, especially, seems to be shifting to other company concerns, which distresses staff who are very committed to the software customers.

Pros

Good benefits Able to work from home Nice offices

Cons

After the expedia acquisition, everything changed. HomeAway is no longer the "big startup " culture but become a blame game so that the folks in Seattle are appeased. The environment, culture, and way of doing things went from well thought out to "how fast can we pump out products even if the quality is poor". That was only emphasized by the declining bar for new hires which caused the overall quality of the company to go down fast. HomeAway was a top tier company with top tier talent, unfortunately now it is a mid-tier company with low quality talent.

Pros

Great office layout. Great vacation policy. Workers in general are pretty relaxed and easy to work with. Opportunity to temporarily work remote or at any of the several offices around the globe.

Cons

Since the Expedia acquisition, the company has internally been on the rapid decline. The new CEO has seen fit to push politics to the forefront of the agenda rather than the needs of our customers. Many of us liked the talk of promoting diversity in the beginning. And this may even sound great to you reading this. But the manner in which is it being forced from the top-down is causing rifts. They are even pressing for people to take the scientifically dubious "implicit bias" test (which is highly ironic considering they are attempting to brand the company as being scientific). To illustrate the type of strife this is causing, on International Women's Day, some of the women (I don't know who they are, but I believe they are involved in promoting events and activities either at HomeAway or possibly Expedia as a whole) decided to celebrate and raise awareness of the day by generously buying flowers (thanks!). This stirred some controversy as most of the commentary on this was that it was a regressive action as opposed to the sign of appreciation and promotion of the day that it was intended to be. There were a handful that voiced their appreciation of the action, and given the environment, I have a hunch that there were more who felt the same, but didn't want to stand out. Additionally, it's become acceptable to tell individuals not to speak on a topic unless they belong to certain groups. There was a discussion regarding an increase in the number of women in a certain group. And it was rightly pointed out that it still was not equal. A man pointed out that it was important to celebrate the progress on the way to the goal, but was told something along the lines of "maybe we should let the women speak on this instead of the men". Mind you, this was not a random comment in the hall. This was in a company chat room. Which the CEO personally reads. Which makes it clear that the company is ok with certain discrimination and wants to encourage, no, force, this division from the top down. My guess is that it's an attempt to drive off those who disagree with the direction and create more of an echo chamber. Bottom line, if you care about the work and satisfying customers, HomeAway is to be avoided.

Pros

Work life balance 4 weeks of PTO Decent health insurance options

Cons

Coaching for employees about long term career development is non-existent. Even after the Expedia acquisition, HomeAway didn't offer the tuition assistance that Expedia offers. Company is very frugal about giving new laptops to employees (unless you are joining newly).

Pros

One of the best companies to work for in Austin. The Expedia acquisition has only improved the outlook.

Cons

Messiness related to change in control post Expedia acquisition but I would fully expect that to settle down -- this is all for the better.

Pros

Incredibly smart executive leadership team working on the most complex and cutting edge consumer web site technology and concepts

Cons

Very fast paced A lot of changes in leadership and culture since the Expedia acquisition