Okay company, good benefits, leadership misguided - Senior Product Designer Tripadvisor Employee Review

2.0
May 14, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good health benefits Widely recognized brand Fair pay for industry 401k matching Matching charity pay for charity of your choice

Cons

A lot of management is misguided, and not well-versed in modern mobile application design. Oftentimes other teams or groups are skirting past user testing ideas before investing time and resources. Really inefficient and poor for building great product users want. Old ways of doing things, hard to change culture or streamline processes. Way too many meetings. "Spec" process and constant back and forth on approvals takes entirely too long. The "speed wins" mentality is antiquated and honestly I never felt like anyone I worked with believed in it. If it mattered, we wouldn't have had so many meetings or rounds of approvals. It took weeks and weeks of calls, meetings, and a lot of ineffiencies to even ship ONE small feature. Layers and layers of reporting structures. I oftentimes found myself in meetings with people wondering why they were even there. 20+ invitees and four people are talking while everyone else buried in their laptops trying to get work done. Some folks have been there too long and stuck in their ways. Clean house. Some poor work life balance at times. Some peers were working 16 hour days during crunch time on projects that never materialized. Emails being sent over the weekend. Raise and bonus structure was poor, and my reviews were very late.

Explore other reviews about Tripadvisor

5.0
Jan 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

people are awesome remote work is common pay and benefits are good

Cons

can they stay relevant in the world of AI

1
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Tripadvisor Response
4mo
Thank you for your positive remarks. As our company continues to evolve, we are appreciative of employee comments that highlight our strengths as well as areas we can improve upon.
2.0
Jun 21, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people you get to work with are genuinely great, and the work-life balance remains fairly solid. In the past, the company attracted top-tier engineering talent from the most reputable tech firms, and the expectations were high but rewarding. A lot of that collaborative culture still exists among the engineers. You will be surrounded by capable individuals who want to do good work.

Cons

The company has been battered by unresolved structural issues over the last decade. The core meta-search business was crippled when Google altered its algorithms to prioritize its own travel products, effectively choking off the organic traffic Tripadvisor depended on. Combined with the impact of COVID-19, leadership tried launching new products to escape this SEO reliance, but those attempts consistently missed the mark. Now, the rapid adoption of LLMs is delivering another severe blow. Users no longer need traditional meta-search to plan travel. The core Tripadvisor product has essentially become a legacy cash cow, with the Experiences division (Viator) being the primary engine keeping the business afloat. Following the departure of the former CEO, thousands of highly skilled employees have left through attrition or ongoing restructuring. Layoffs have become a grim constant, happening once or twice a year. Even if you manage to avoid the cuts, the compensation structure is no longer competitive for the tech industry, and RSUs have virtually dried up. Because of the abysmal direction and the very high chance you won't survive the next round of looming layoffs, I strongly recommend avoiding this company as a new hire.

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