Pros
Houzz has an amazing environment where you are surrounded by not just intelligent and friendly people but a group of young professionals who really support each other. Its near impossible to leave Houzz without building really strong friendships and relationships with the people around you. Fully stocked kitchen and free Friday lunches are nice too.
Cons
Despite all the incredible reviews about how much people love their jobs, a change is definitely needed within the organization. It is widely known throughout the office that employees are asked to leave raving reviews on Glassdoor to offset the negative. You’ll probably notice that for every bad review almost immediately there are 4-5 raving reviews that sound nearly identical. It’s nearly impossible to get an accurate response to a question from management, seeing that every decision has to go through one head manager. While things seem logical or obvious no changes will ever be made without the approval of one key person in charge who has no idea how some of the departments are actually ran. The Marketplace department is often referred to as a “startup within a startup” but the only real reason for that is management is so far removed from what actually happens that growth is unobtainable. Upper management is so focused on hitting unrealistic goals set from the CEO who spends nearly no time with the teams that they end up not just micromanaging, but putting their efforts towards growing a large site with no quality content. Selling products on Houzz is pitched as an incredible opportunity for a new online platform, when in reality the company puts zero focus on actually growing the business or sales; their only priority is to get as many products as possible so they are worth more…not actually building anything of value. If you can deal with all of the micromanagement and secrecy within the company, you should probably know that you can’t expect consistent pay either. Many employees were “promoted” into the new Marketplace department being told there would be lots of room for growth and expansion, when in reality even management doesn’t know the path for many positions & you will receive a pay cut. Shortly after I moved into a position within MP and realized commission structures not just changed but were significantly less than what had ever been before. I reached out to management with confusion on how I could be given a promotion, yet not have the opportunity to even make as much as I did in an entry level position and I was told “are you here for the money, or the opportunity to work for a company like Houzz”….I’m here to make money, if I wanted great opportunities I would be traveling the world, not sitting in a lime green call center. They also said things such as "You were never supposed to make that much money in that role." due to the teams ability to over exceed goals.