Great place to work... sort of - Product Manager Tripadvisor Employee Review

I could have been at TripAdvisor a lot longer - I had no need to leave just to go elsewhere, but there were many factors that contributed to pushing me out the door. As a point of information, I left for a role at another company, so I do not feel like I was fleeing TripAdvisor - but I also don't feel like I was "retained" very well, either. More importantly, these criticisms come from a large number of conversations with current and former employees across the company - so while you should take them with some salt, also know they are not merely the ramlings of one person. My criticism falls into two major categories: Management and Consistency Management ----------------- There appears to be no focus on "people management" as a high-value skill set, particularly among those who have direct reports. In four years at the company, I had six managers - only one of whom seemed to focus in any way on helping his/her direct reports succeed in their careers. In fact, a number of these managers seemed far more incentivized NOT to promote their direct reports than to move them up the chain. In particular, most of the managers in the product management group appear less interested in managing people than in managing products. One possible reason for this lack of strong management is that individual contributors are promoted to positions in which they manage other people without any regard for whether they (a) want to or (b) should be. Not only does this make for a really poor work experience for their direct reports, it also diminishes the experience for the manager. Other than engineers, no functions have a career path beyond (senior) individual contributor that does not involve people management - so even those who are not inclined to accept those responsibilities have an incentive to take them on in order to move ahead. Because management are hired for technical competencies instead of a specific management skill set, there is a distinct lack of empathy - it simply doesn't seem to be promoted as a required trait or skill among those who are responsible for the careers of others. For example: on being told that my 4th quarter performance wasn't where it had been the rest of the year, I asked when my manager had noticed this change; he said "a few weeks into the quarter." I asked why he didn't bring it up (or even ask me if everything was alright), and instead waited until 2+ months later; his response was, "Oh yeah, I guess I could have done that." That's just one example, but it's fairly illustrative of the value (or lack thereof) placed on treating direct reports with compassion as fellow human beings. Consistency --------------- There doesn't seem to be any consistency between the company's stated "values" and management's actions. For example, "We're always learning" does not seem to be reflected in a desire to have managers learning how to be better at their jobs - apparently it's for the rank-and-file only. No matter how much upper management (particularly HR) want people to act according to the company's values, there must be incentives in place for each level to do so - otherwise the whole chain falls apart. Of course, this is not a surprise since middle management isn't chosen for their ability to lead but rather for their ability to perform as individual contributors. Having worked in multiple groups within the company, I would also point out inconsistent promotion schedules and criteria as another issue. In particular, a "Competencies Matrix" was released for product managers - and was subsequently used in different ways to avoid promotions. Even after a representative from HR stated outright in a group, "You do not have to be performing at the next level in all of these criteria in order to move up," at the next review my manager said, "I didn't hear that" - and nobody up the chain was willing to correct him. Although a company of this size is due to have reorganizations on a fairly regular basis, the two groups in which I have worked over my time at TripAdvisor were subject to no fewer than 6 in less than 4 years, ranging from a simple, "We're changing the reporting structure" to a full-on "We're being absorbed into a different group." This has a massive impact on employee morale and was very poorly managed and communicated, resulting in an even larger negative outcome. Due to these changes, I went from reporting to a Vice President to being three layers below the same position in the span of 16 months. Finally, in many cases pay is not commensurate with experience. Product Managers with 5-10 years of work experience are paid at or below market value, while members of the post-MBA product rotation program are paid 20-30% more from the start. Yes, we are attempting to compete for talent with other companies, but the toll that this revelation takes on the psyches of PMs who aren't in that program (particularly those who have MBAs) cannot be underestimated.