Pros
Snacks! Great location! Some fun people! Cool baristas! Being able to work from home whenever you want -- oh wait. Sorry. Can't really do that anymore. Health care? Okay. But Yelp's health benefits aren't unique to them. In fact, many employees have begun to worry that the company is going to make us pay for it. If you enjoy feeling like an afterthought, you will thrive. But if you're shy, if you're kind, if you want to be judged on the integrity of the work you do and not whose boots you lick, you'll be cast aside like a forgotten first wife. Oh wait... these were the pros! Let's see -- you can drink overly stocked IPAs on any given day of the week and scavenge off the engineering department requisite Friday catered lunches. You, in UO, will get a free-not-free lunch every so often.
Cons
Low pay. Can't stress that enough. A cost of living raise was recently given to the entirety of the department, meaning that just the base salary was raised. Too little, too late. In turn, it made the tenure that this department so steadfastly values almost worthless. There are little to no incentives to go above and beyond. Have a strong work ethic? Great. They'll take advantage of that, and not in a way that actually makes you feel good or gives you the impression that they value your input or intellect. They want little more than to make you a subservient work horse. You'll never get a raise for undertaking multiple projects at once, or joining multiple teams. And hey, that's exploitative. That isn't just any regular job. Under other employment circumstances, when you ask someone to take on additional responsibilities, especially ones that carry the weight of leadership, you compensate them fairly. You don't just pay them in gratitude. But no -- what if I'm there long enough? What if I really prove that I care? What if I really want to plant roots here? Don't bother. Everyone that's currently in middle management has been here for years and years, so an upstart like you doesn't have a chance. Maybe things are balanced more fairly on other UO teams, but if you're on another, prepare to always be invisible. You're generally thought as less than, especially with the other UO teams. Everyone in UO is so isolated, and perhaps it's because it's a position that has been marketed towards introverts. But one team is more so -- anything you try to communicate toward other teams is of the lowest priority, and partly it's because you're considered to have the easiest job. You're considered to be the lowest on the intellectual totem pole. To go further, there is no upward climb. There has been some disruption in middle-management lately (meaning team leads) in User Ops, and much to the general chagrin of the department, those positions went to external candidates. Doesn't exactly inspire hope to anyone who has potentially invested years, or wants to invest, years of their life into a position like this. Nearly all of User Ops (with a few exceptions) is run by white men. The department VP is an eloquent, intelligent man -- but an out of touch man. It's been a long time since he's had to work for so little. Point is, there's little diversity, and sometimes it makes you wonder if better qualified, more reserved women are being passed up by more gregarious, sycophantic men. This is a high turnover role, and the reasons I outlined above only begin to scratch the surface. Everyone who decides to do this role understands the monotony of it, but the eventual personal stagnation and complete lack of support from within the company is staggering. There's a lot of condescension and incompetence in upper management. So if you do decide that you're desperate enough to take this job whenever it's advertised, don't say we didn't warn you. Hopefully you'll take the rampant disorganization and lack of transparency better than most.