Pros
Like most Bay Area companies, you can enjoy the following: • Catered dinners • Stocked kitchens (most of the time) • Fun office design, including a slide • Standard health benefits • Annual offsite • The employees here are amazing, both personally and professionally • Birthday celebrations
Cons
I wish this review was for the same company I joined and loved a few years ago, but sadly it is not… my recent experience conveys that Houzz is beginning to let bad hiring decisions and unprofessionalism slide by to the point that the culture and work environment may be unsalvageable if they don’t put a few changes into place and fast. I am not writing this review out of malicious intent, but so often people are misguided by fake, sugarcoated reviews that are meant to overshadow legitimate insights. While Houzz has some perks that would make many people in Silicon Valley jump at the chance to join, it unfortunately hasn’t scaled properly for its growth and is now paying the price. From an outside perspective, Houzz appears as a dream company to work for that is always positively portrayed in the news and praised by its users. But what most people don’t realize until a few months in with the company is the “democratic” leadership they promote is just a veil for what seems more like an autocratic environment. All decisions, including every single hiring decision, is funneled up to and approved by the CEO and President (a husband and wife duo). The pay is well below the average of most Bay Area startups, which can be a slap in the face when they’re always advertising how well the company is doing profit-wise, and the opportunity for growth is practically nonexistent. With a constantly growing office and very flat organizational structure, they’ve been unsuccessful in placing competent, experienced individuals in management type positions, which has caused a lot of tension, frustrations, and unhealthy work environments across many teams. The problem is then compounded by the fostered notion that passive-aggressive communication is the best way to handle employee complaints and struggles, rather than being upfront and transparent. Most leaders of departments just function as the puppets controlled by the wants and needs of the Founders, creating the inability to lead and make decisions on their own. Another never-ending frustration is the constant accommodation that is only bestowed upon the engineering department. Everything from dinners to social events revolve around the schedule that engineers operate on, so unless you plan on hanging around the office until 6:30pm and beyond, you’ll unfortunately never get to experience these perks that automatically eliminates most people with children or who have a certain train to catch if they want to get home at a decent hour. This also applies to the “unlimited” PTO policy put in place, so I highly suggest asking questions about how a specific department treats that perk before taking on a position under that assumption. Houzz’s inability to take critical feedback and make any changes at all to accommodate the evolving culture has caused them to quickly lose great talent across all departments of the organization. I so desperately wish the founders would open their eyes before they start losing any valuable team members they have left. A lot of people, including myself, have discussed what a poor outlook they have on the future of Houzz as a reputable and high-ranked employer and have begun researching better options. People just don’t deserve to waste their time and talent on an organization that doesn’t genuinely care about the employee experience.
