The dream is long, long gone, folks. - Customer Service Representative eBay Employee Review

2.0
Dec 27, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Two things kept me at eBay - the compensation and benefits (above average) and the fantastic people that I worked with every day. Everyone on each team I worked with was bright, technically saavy, and customer oriented. It's a great place to experience cutting edge software and see how e-commerce works (the good and the very, very bad). Work there if you want to get some experience and make some money for say, six months. Then move on. Career - not so much.

Cons

Where to start? Even when Meg was CEO management was too far removed from the day to day problems CSRs encountered, and seemed to focus on making the job harder every year. Lower level employees were treated as disposable units despite lip service promoting eBay as a good place to work. Hard to have "work-life balance" when you are kept on a night shift with no chance of going to days, or when you needed to schedule a sick day ahead of time (or be penalized), or when a bathroom break of over 3 minutes is a cause of concern. Yes, all activities were logged by the minute.... And that brings me to metrics. Don't work at eBay if you like to work at your own pace or if you like to show creativity in corresponding with your customers. There are numbers you have to hit every day, and a proscribed way to do it, and it doesn't matter if it is fair or unhelpful to your customers. If your Satisfaction rating sucks because of some new policy that has people upset, sorry, your fault! and you get dinged for it. The company is run by technocrats who show very little concern for anything but the bottom line, and it has been that way for years. The appointment of John Donahoe is the logical endpoint for a management that sees customer support as a money drain and buyers and sellers as a necessary nuisance. They just aren't pretending any more that the eBay community is some shining experiment in democratic capitalism. Reality bites - welcome to North American business in the 21st century.

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5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Flexible and intuitive to use

Cons

Buyers always get prioritized with no full comp to sellers

3.0
Jun 20, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Relaxing culture. family first. Stock performance is generally good for the recent two years and huge benefit if you're eligible for ESPP. Stable product with large customer base means you get opportunity to work on project with real impact.

Cons

1. Blind push for AI and leadership expect unrealistic efficiency improvement 2. Layoff every year in Feb (2024, 2025, 2026) and sometimes can feel the tension in team 3. Legacy tech stack with isolated and fragile infrastructure. Developer friction is a real pain. You get random infra down every once a while and internal support becomes even worse since they started offshoring to LCOL area in 2025. 4. Hiring freeze in San Jose... just expect more layoff coming up + frequent meetings at night / early morning across regions

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