Where do I even start?
Why don't I start with my co-workers that got fired for made up reasons just to get rid of them. You better be careful about being an employee that works hard, performs at or above average, and asks management the tough questions in an effort to try improving the company or department. You will be viewed by management as a problem, someone that "questions" them and ultimately as someone to get rid of. Since I've left I've heard of this happening to a few other colleagues of mine that were fine employees. Zillow encourages employees to provide feedback, but what they should really say is "you can share your ideas with us but we're going to say no because we know better, and if you continue to bring up your recommendations you may not ever have the chance for giving that feedback again." It's mind boggling how a company does this. A lot of the employees that write positive reviews are just blind to these firings - and to Zillow's "credit" they do a great job of hiding it.
For most of my tenure I was on a thriving and growing department of about 40 people and then it was quickly run into the ground - and actually cut entirely - by the actions of the most unprofessional management group you can ever imagine. A few years ago about half of the management team was inherited from a merger, and they were what drove this department into the ground. There's no point in giving further details, my point is that I can't believe upper management allowed this to take place. Simply pathetic. The whole way through this downward slide I was consistently vocal that things should be going the opposite direction. I had numerous colleagues thank me for being the one that spoke out, however, management told me I was a "problem" and on more than one occasion wanted me to apologize - I didn't. I'm confident I wasn't further reprimanded since I was a top producer. I eventually left that department (before it got cut) because I got sick of being treated like a child. It didn't get a whole lot better in the next department as I continued to be treated as junior level employee, and not like someone that had been with the company for half a decade.
Another major reason that I left Zillow was that when I transferred departments (from Onboarding to Premier Broker), going into a more difficult and important role, I was asked to take a $12,000 annual pay cut. No commissions I'm hiding to throw off the numbers - this was a legitimate huge pay cut. Oh, we were promised that we would be getting at least some sort of bonuses starting later in the year, but that didn't happen and that's a whole other story. None of us believed the bonuses would actually happen, we knew it was just more deceit and lies from management in an effort to string us along, again. Anyways, when I poked and prodded about the proposed pay cut it was explained that this was in an effort to minimize the gender pay gap. I was told that Zillow was going to start putting people at the same pay when they joined a department regardless of their seniority, tenure, etc. to make sure that men and women were not paid differently. Keep in mind, this was shortly after Zillow reported that they paid women $1.01 to every $1.00 that men make. In the end management agreed to meet me halfway, so I decided to take a fairly healthy pay cut in the name of equality.
You can see why I left, can't you?
I've seen so many grievances take place against my co-workers that I couldn't even begin to list all of them; I would be typing this review for the rest of the day. I suppose some mismanagement is to be expected in any quickly growing tech company, but it's hard to imagine it being much worse than it is at Zillow. Don't even get me started on some of the problems in Denver too, holy cow is that office completely out of hand on so many levels. The stories I could tell. Wow.
In my last year or two we were expected to essentially be robots, just repeating the script we were given. We were highly encouraged to make up client success stories that fit the narrative of that "call script". I always told management "No. Absolutely Not." to these approaches, and you know what's ironic? I was considered one of the best client coaches - even though I would consistently go outside of my lane. It was a running joke among my colleagues that we should just record our coaching calls, push play when we got the client on the phone, and that would be the best way to appease management. Unbelievable.
An astonishing number of very successful employees have left Zillow in the last year or so. A lot of people have finally had enough.
I could go on about numerous other issues that Zillow has, but I'll stop there.
