Vantaggi
- Relocation package is good. If you eager to leave your third-world country this is an option. - Subsidized lunches are good. - You can meet a few smart people there. Will find x5 more idiots though... - Work-life balance is good - you can do nothing for many months and no one will notice it. - Good salary and bonuses according to the local job market(which is very bad) - If you always wanted to play a "House of cards" IRL this is your chance! Don't read further, apply immediately.
Svantaggi
First of all, I beg you to believe and I swear everything you may read in negative reviews here is absolute truth. If still you decide to join after this please have a clear understanding of why you are doing this and always keep in mind a backup plan in case you realize you can not stand it anymore. - The company doesn't make any profit because of successful tech products. The only things that make it work are lack of competition, heavy usage of dark patterns and google ads. Obviously, if you don't have a need in tech people who can do more than moving buttons around a form you don't want to waste your money and efforts for them. I believe this attitude is the main driver that leads to all the ugliness Booking has inside. - The middle management is deeply rotten. All around the company, you will find managers and product owners who only care about what is good for them to get a bonus or a promotion and don't care if these actions make sense for the company. No need to say they will evaluate you in terms if you are helping them to achieve these goals. - The first line managers aka Team Leads is nothing better. At one point a couple years back anyone who was willing to be a team leader was promoted. As you can imagine this led to many brown-nosers in TL position. Nowadays it is normal to see former UI designers and copywriters leading dev teams. Obviously, they have no clue what their people are doing and how to assess their work. - The higher management is either dumb or, what is most likely, don't care about this issues while cash-flow keeps going. - Almost any manager or product owner will retaliate over your badly in case you disagree with them. Don't worry, they will do this without violating the code of conduct. And believe me, they will make your work life miserable from that point - A noticeable part of your compensation is a bonus which is not guaranteed and can be cut off by a wish from anyone from your management line. - The company is corporate "nonsense" driven. From higher management, you will never hear anything except politically-assured answers(which are usually not the answers). For the middle management, you will easily notice a huge difference between what they say and what they do. - No need to say your technical skills and achievements worth nothing at Booking. Most likely you also won't learn anything new. After a few years there no decent tech company will hire you. - I will not elaborate on this but here is a huge amount of politics on every level. - There are quotas in recruitment and promotions. Which may be good for you if you are a girl. - Recently started a cost-cutting which is nothing good. No one knows which benefit will disappear the next month. - Local Amsterdam job market is very bad. You will hardly find a company who can pay you comparable to Booking, which makes you sit in a golden cage if you were committed to this move. Booking knows this so they will squeeze all the forces out of you until you are empty, then they will throw you away.
