Vantaggi
Good if you want a stable job with minimal work and if you're not ambitious. Most people just go by with minimum amount of work. The salary is average, good benefits. You get a macbook.
Svantaggi
As a member of the search backend team, some of the problems: - new management who don't understand how ebay works, trying to force fit solutions they saw at yahoo, microsoft - too much process being introduced, agile scrum burndown charts etc..takes the fun out of coding. There are 2-3 update status check meetings every day and you have to fill multiple charts on your progress. Feels like a punch-card system rather than creative software dev. - the project they are working on has been significantly delayed by almost a year, so work-life balance suffers. Plus key people have left. - the engineering vision is driven by a few senior people who often belittle other engineers, publicly humiliate code written by you and take credit for all the glamorous work. While these people are smart, this can be a bad learning experience and a disheartening experience for younger engineers. - the entire software stack is being rewritten for the past 2 years..feels like a long project and most deadlines are missed by months. No accountability of senior management.