Skyscanner Reviews

Pros

Worklife balance Some well established processes On the surface there is a group of people working to improve diversity and inclusion.

Cons

Had to delete my other review taking about their diversity problems since I was sort of threatened with a legal action. I see some similar other reviews have also been deleted. This is essentially further suppressing minority groups. I wouldn’t join this company unless I’m a WWP (white western person). Legal note: Totally my opinion and perception and like all opinionated reviewers this review may not indicate reality.

Pros

A lot of autonomy in your work in certain tribes. Mid-range salary Cross company collaboration results in a broad perspective.

Cons

The company is in danger of becoming a bloated corporation. The security tribe has become a typical blocker to most people acting as gate-keepers rather than providing an enablement function.

Pros

- Interesting problems in the data space - Great attention to work/life balance, you're given complete flexibility over managing your time - You'll meet some talented individuals within the company - Good core benefits

Cons

- Impossible to progress unless you know the right people or are given opportunities. Openly told I would never get promoted - Team atmosphere that once existed has gone, making it a challenge to get support when needed and harder to make changes to code - Data as a group lacks a coherent identity and vision - Constant changes to the stack and tracking have reduced what data specialists can achieve - Work was occasionally taken by other individuals and presented as their own without credit - Bullying behaviour existed between teams and senior employees, with attempts made to discredit the work of other employees - Significantly lower pay based on which office you work in

Pros

At Skyscanner you generally feel well taken care of. The offices, IT, equipment, induction etc are all great. The pay is fairly competitive too; for the roles I was aware of in Edinburgh, I don't think you could really do much better. The people are generally good and they certainly pay a lot of lip-service to fairness, respect, equality etc in the workplace. I never felt like I was under an undue amount of pressure or that I was treated badly or spoken to rudely by a single person ever. In the good times (pre-COVID), it was still a growing business with great economics that genuinely believed in letting the staff share the rewards of that growth. I'm sure those times will come again and, when they do, it'll be very enjoyable to be part of that journey.

Cons

The company is extremely processes-heavy and it's very, very hard to really get anything done. They are tied up with bureaucracy and legacy and asking for endless business cases for doing even the most trivial things. They somehow hope to catch up to the competition by going slower than them. The leadership talk about a 'bias to action' but the reality is there is a bias to documentation. The endless, endless documents can really drag you down. If you ask a simple question, you will be hammered with links to about a day's worth of reading instead of getting an answer. The product side of the business has far too little drive and too much ownership. They seem to gate-keep the resource for everything while contributing very little in terms of initiatives that actually take the business forward. Trying to fix or improve even the smallest thing, like replacing an outdated airline logo, can take days and days of being passed from squad to squad because nobody wants to take ownership of anything. Engineering resource is impossibly limited, despite something like 60% of the business being engineers. I literally have no idea what they do all day. They're very proud of their 'ship rate' but so little actually changes that you'd be hard-pressed to spot the difference between the site today and 12 months ago. The actual product itself, the website, is getting desperately behind the competition. I myself use Kayak when I'm booking my flights because it's better! Rank and file staff often suggest feature improvements but they are hand-waived away by senior leaders as being not important, while instead, they focus on 'brand' and what they *think* travellers want/need. The old leaders of the business that made it great are long gone and those in charge now seem to lack real vision. Although there are a lot of talented and dedicated people at Skyscanner, the overall standard is surprisingly low for somewhere that has such a ridiculously onerous interview process. There are a lot of people, including at Director level and above, who have absolutely no business being in their positions.