Zalando reviews

The company has the chaos and lack of the structure typical of startups, but at the same time all the bureaucracy of a corporate. Software engineers spend most of our time trying to fish information, and doing sooooo much manual and operational work, but very little in engineering or programming. At the same time, it doesn't provide the learning and growing opportunities of a startup (all the promotions were done a few years ago and now none gets promoted), neither the stability of a corporate (teams are reshuffled every few months and whole departments downsized).

I have to say different departments have different experiences, but from my view: - Toxic work environment, I have seen 3 internal rotations due to team attitude. - Verbal aggression is very common, related to first point. I have seen colleges shouting at each other just for different ideas. At company level, there are even workshops to improve this. - Lack of flexibility in decision making, everything needs to be agreed. Progressive change is frowned up, everything needs to have a process, jumping a step in the process is a reason to start a hot discussion. - High personal rotation, related to first points. Also most of the person in probation period do not pass. After relocating a person and firing it for not filling a high standard, is just disheartened. This has happened 3 times in my close environment. - Very stressful work, you may need to work at 24x7, they may "suggest" you to work in it. You cannot balance work and life.