Vantaggi
eBay is going through an interesting transition right now, as it tries to bring the old marketplace site up to modern retail standards. There are a lot of projects and various efforts around the company to improve look, feel, voice and tone, as well as modernize the engineering and UX of the site tools themselves. Challenges make for opportunities, and for those of us who enjoy change, this is a cool place to be. There are a lot of very sharp people here working very hard to make things better. The company seems to genuinely care about employees, which is refreshing after some of the turns I've seen being taken at other companies in this economy (Netflix, I'm looking at you). Fitness centers, cafeterias, ESPP, decent pay and other programs definitely make a difference as far as feeling valued by the company. Work-life balance is there, and while working from home is usually up to your manager, as a whole the company is open to it. The San Jose Hamilton campus is really pleasant, and the PayPal campus, while trickier to get to, is also very nice. Parking is an issue everywhere, but the company has provided free valet services to help with that.
Svantaggi
The backbiting taking place in some groups is absolutely astonishing. The first time I witnessed it I was floored - and very uncomfortable. It's as if these folks think that this type of behavior is actually an acceptable way of doing business. I've seen reputations destroyed with the flick of the mute button, as a SENIOR MANAGER mutes a conference call, bad-mouths the speaker to a full conference room, and then turns the audio back on. If you EVER get on the wrong side of anyone who has any influence over your work, you will find it very difficult to overcome the negative trash-talk that will instantly take place and propagate all around you - but never to your face. Your manager will base your reviews on hear-say, and you will be destroyed. If this happens to you, you should start looking for another role at another company immediately, because you won't be able to overcome this here.