Pros
Great work-life balance. Generous benefits (on par with other Bay Area tech companies). Strong engineering culture. Engineering and recruiting actively care about improving diversity and creating an atmosphere where everybody is welcome. Yelp’s public reputation may be iffy, but most of the people who work there are amazing. The majority of engineers are nice, helpful people. Jeremy Stoppelman seems like a truly good person who has the best intentions for the company and who wants to put good things back into the world. The weird part of working for Yelp was balancing the public’s perception with my own experience since the two tended to clash.
Cons
Easy to get stuck on projects that are doomed for failure. Product management is very homogenous and that branch of the org’s diversity is extremely weak. More than a few bullies have found a comfortable place in the upper reaches of Product. Definitely has an old boy’s club feel. No feedback structures exist between engineers and product management. As an engineer, 80% of my direction on projects came straight from Product, but any feedback I had- positive or negative-had to be relayed through my engineering manager. HR could be more receptive to benefits changes that the org cares about.