FAANG to Expedia Experience
I went from working at multiple faangs to Expedia 6 months ago. I have 14 yoe and manage teams. Thought I’d share some pros/cons. Pros: 1. Comp for upper mgmt is pretty good. 2. Work is not as complex which can be good or bad depending on where you are in career. At FAANG the scale is huge making the work super complex. Whereas at Expedia scale is relatively small. 3. Work life balance is great! No deadlines or pressure really to deliver. This is another pro and con. 4. Benefits are pretty good for a smaller company. 5. Expedia seems to be giving out more compensation lately. Cons: 1. No bar to hiring across Expedia results in many sub-par engineers. I know engineers at Expedia who never were sde prior. One was a data analyst contractor who converted to sde III with no formal interview. 2. People are lazy but yet want faang comp and benefits. Entitlement is real strong here. 3. Politics are heavy at the top. Many ppl brought in from same company. 4. No transparency from leadership and teams don’t work together. 5. Job stability - I am unsure my role is stable because leadership tends to reorg constantly and I’m worried in future my role would be in jeopardy. Basically you are always 1 reorg away from potentially losing your job. 6. Did I mentioned the people? Many subpar people who don’t understand tech and wouldn’t last a day at faang. These folks think they are the shit when in reality they have no idea what they are doing. Tc: $550k+
550k at Expedia is awesome
Is this different from what you expected?
I didn’t factor in the lower bar. I manage teams and it’s been difficult to adjust. Things you would have a junior employee do at faang, you need a sr manager+ to do at Expedia. And even then it’s not right. I really didn’t account for the lower bar and how difficult it may be to navigate
Knowing what you know now, would you have made the same decision to join Expedia?
What level are you in Expedia op?
Director
Wow what level gives $550? (Edit: I see you said Director) I talked to a HM last year for an SDM role and when I said I wanted $400 his mouth literally dropped and I was ghosted. Maybe time to reach out again.
Need at least level N. Also the stock has 1 year cliff but they will give signing
SDM is not going to give 400 even now. Sr Manager Software dev is around 300-320 at max
How much do Senior (L5) and Staff (L6) engineers typically make there?
You need to be level N for any real comp. Unsure what that equals elsewhere
Expedia doesn’t have staff levels. We did away with it a long time ago.jump from senior to principal is huge and probably takes 6/7years unless extra ordinary super engineer. Typical Senior Salaries are 250-300k TC and Principal is roughly around 400-500k (principal maps to Director)
And how’s remote work? Is it pretty chill? How many hours/week would you guess most engineers put in?
My engineers work 30 hrs per week.. during deadlines may be 40/45 at max
Also what level were you at FAANG to hit director there?
Director at Expedia is M1 at Meta
When you say WLB, what does that look like for you?
I work 30hrs per week.. tech… management. My direct reports work around the same and get their quarterly goals done
I work about 50 hours since I have a large team - 35 ppl.. and am learning still since within 6 months joining
I will give you a counter point from My experience at EG. People especially ICs are not lazy. The hiring bar is getting better each quarter. the past few years have just been rough due to horrible upper management from prior CEO and then Covid was icing on the cake. Have come through the ranks here at Expedia and have same YOE as you but a level above. The WLB at Expedia is excellent and if you compare the pay/hr based on hours worked at EG vs FAANG, you can clearly see how it is great for people who have families and prioritize their actual life and activities over work (which is how it should be) . Infact I can argue some of the recent offers are almost FAANG levels with the addon of WLB. Also your TC is that post stock drop. Given you joined around 6m ago.. that’s pretty close to ATH for your initial stock assignment 😬
Trying not to out myself with timeline. $550k is factoring any drop
That’s good. My current hope is this complete overhaul in management might finally do the trick… but travel is a volatile industry in general
Seems like entitlement is pretty common across tech.
Yes but at other companies at least people earned it.