Do not make the same mistake I did and join Merchandising. - Merchandising Wayfair Employee Review

1.0
17 June 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The L1s and L2s are awesome. Every individual that I have encountered at these levels is supportive, caring, and honest. Even in the darkest of days (and there are plenty of them), there are plenty of people here [at these levels] that care about you and will go out of their way to make you feel better. If you're looking for an environment where you can make a lot of friends, you will find that here. Additionally, seemingly everybody outside of this department is also awesome too. CM, Product Performance, Pricing, etc. It honestly makes me wonder how I got so unlucky.

Cons

This is without a doubt the most toxic work environment I could have ever imagined. Most of the senior managers here have their MBAs and act as if they walk on water because of it. What they fail to understand is that an MBA does not teach you how to be a good person, a good leader, or a good teacher. You will be micro-managed, belittled for every single mistake you make, constantly reminded why you're not good enough, and will never be able to do anything the right way. Don't believe recruiting when they tell you that if you work hard and do well, you can get promoted.... that is a complete lie. The jump from L1 to L2 is very difficult no matter how good you are and the jump from L2 to L3 is literally impossible. You will be constantly reminded why you're not getting promoted and why you're not living up to your potential... with every single mistake that you make. It is demoralizing beyond words. I am naturally a happy, upbeat person but often days I wake up completely miserable in having to go to the office. There's not a minute that goes by where I don't think about the weekend. There has been a ridiculous amount of turnover since I joined here almost a year ago, but, everybody that has left the company has been afraid to deliver the honest truth. This pressure cooker work environment unique to Merchandising will make you feel like you're in school all over again, only you're entire body of work will never be seen or appreciated, every mistake you make will sink you, and your manager will take all the credit while making you feel unappreciated, unintelligent, and afraid to open your mouth. This review is not being given to spite somebody/something; I'm actually meeting expectations. I just want to prevent somebody else that has plenty of options/is happy in their current job from making the same mistake I did. Trust me, you can do much better than this department.

Explore other reviews about Wayfair

5.0
6 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Smart colleagues tackling interesting, business relevant problems.

Cons

Long-term projects sometimes significantly modified in response to short-term business needs.

5.0
12 May 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Wayfair is a fantastic company if you're a software engineer who's looking to keep quiet, and not speak up when management treats you like garbage. And it excels at finding leaders who are willing to go the extra mile to be untrustworthy and make you feel like your job isn't safe (and for real, it's not).

Cons

Let's talk. The company has been growing like crazy, and one thing that was never thought about was "can we actually hire at a sustainable rate, and scale accordingly?" The answer was no on both counts. Software engineers at Wayfair have a history of disappearing. People who enter labs have an especially low success rate (70% make it through, and less than 50% last a whole year). It's basically their way to run people through a burnout gauntlet, and see who survives. And then you have the stories of the people who come in to work and are just asked to resign. You'll see hints of it here on Glassdoor if you dig, and it's even worse than what you read. They actually gathered all the engineers for a big meeting at the beginning of this year. And they said that they were sorry that people felt scared and were sad that people felt like management didn't care. Which is exactly how we felt. They promised that their door was open, and they were going to work hard to set things right. One person out of 500 stood up and asked a really cutting question. AND THEN THEY FIRED HIM! And there were 3 completely different official reasons given about it. It's crazy. The leaders also started up an engineering meeting to keep everyone on the same page and answer anonymous questions. One time someone asked why we couldn't get snow days off, because it was tough to shovel for 3 to 4 hours and still work an 8 hour day. So the leaders proceeded to talk down to us and reprimand us for even thinking about asking a question like this. Turnover has been high over the past year, and the best people are leaving. This worries management, but they still have no idea that the problem is actually them creating a terrible environment. So if you're a good person who cares about the person next to you and leaving things better than you found them, don't bother applying here. But if you're not, and you just want to keep your head down and not question anything, then this is the perfect place for you. And if that's what you want, Wayfair gets 5 stars. Amazing career opportunities if you want to have the same job forever. Incredible senior management that value untrustworthiness. A fantastic culture of watching people next to you disappear. It's truly a perfect company.

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Wayfair Response
8y
First, I wanted to thank you for providing feedback. Second, I am very sorry to hear that your experience was far from ideal. I know it can be hard to give feedback if you feel management is the problem, but leadership would love to learn about these issues to refine the Wayfair employee experience. We do try to create an open and transparent environment; one thing we’ve started doing is department-wide anonymous surveys. This has been helpful in identifying issues where people don’t feel comfortable speaking up for whatever reason and pinpoint where any issues may exist. As you noted, the company is growing very quickly - our Engineering team alone has grown tenfold over the past five years. I won’t pretend we get it right all the time, but we do aim to scale our teams and our systems reasonably to meet the rapid growth of our business, and we rely on employee feedback to refine these processes. To that end, we’ve put a lot of time and energy into our interview process. And, we closely track our voluntary and involuntary attrition rates to make sure we are keeping high employee retention and so that we can immediately nip any potential issues in the bud. For Wayfair Labs, we’ve made huge strides since the beginning of this program, and our average success rate is now over 90%, with several classes at 100%. We also run management trainings on giving, receiving and soliciting feedback. In these trainings - and in general - we encourage respect for all teammates and partners, communication and collaboration, and we try create opportunities for people to take on new challenges. I am very excited about the work we’re doing to solve tough challenges and there’s an exciting opportunity for our employees to do big things – our goal is to build a team that feels encouraged and empowered to do so. I’m very sorry you didn’t have the experience we try to cultivate. Once again, thank you for this feedback.
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