Airbnb performance review
Recieved an offer from Airbnb, L4 position. Have a few questions that I hope people here can answer. 1. How does performance review at AirBnb work and what is the process? 2. Are perfs yearly once and what is the cycle - Jan to December? 3. What is the criteria for a promo - how hard is it? Do we need to get two consecutive exceeds expectations kinda rating to get promo, like how it works at Google? 4. If I join mid year, will my hike, variable and refreshers be pro-rated? 5. Also, what do you guys feel about the stock growth and company vision? TC~ 300k Yoe: 4
Why !excited? You should be excited!
I was excited before joining, but everything has died down in a couple of months. Stupid leadership, BS teams
When did you join?
Last year
Perf review is yearly. Mid cycle promos still exist though. It’s standard 360 degree review system. There’s no hard requirement to get multiple exceeds for promo. But you need to be consistent in your performance for a while before getting it. L4 to L5 took me 3.5 years. Not sure about prorated stuff. Ask your recruiter. Stock had massive growth during IPO. Right now it’s been stagnant. The expectation is that there’s more room for growth when travel reopens and most are bullish but nobody can predict the stock market. Working from home is an option until at least 9/2022 without salary adjustment which is better than some FAANG.
Did you say wfh until 2022? Also about the perf, is it January to December cycle? Which month does the hiked salary reflect in?
Yes. Office will reopen but you can work globally til 9/2022 without comp adjustment. Perf cycle is from January to December. Reviews are usually done by early March.
1. Performance review is twice a year. Only one of these involves a comp adjustment/refresher (unless you are promoted). Rankings are 1-5, ranking will help determine your bonus (bonus paid in two halves, one per perf review). 2. I wanna say March/September were when reviews happened. 3. Don't have to have two consecutive exceeds, although that is the most common path AFAIK. To be clear that's two consecutive 6 month period exceeds, not two years. Can also be done with eg one greatly exceeds. Difficulty depends on level and division. Most important criteria is delivering impactful projects and showing ownership, but stuff like things you do for team culture and code quality can also affect it. 4. Probably depends when exactly, not sure 5. Stock growth is more than I ever anticipated. I'd be surprised if it kept setting new highs, it's already substantially down from peak. But then again I never expected it to be this high, so what do I know. Comp is quite strong in general though. Vision wise there's lots of cool work making current product better. But airbnb has really struggled to deliver a "second" product. The Homes product is not really fundamentally different than it was a few years ago. AFAIK innovations like Plus, Lux/Luxury Retreats, and Airbnb for Work remain small and hard to scale. Experiences is not a huge market to begin with and iirc is losing money.
Is is still worth joining Airbnb post-ipo, also given that the company is not generating profit due to pandemic which God knows when it will end. I am afraid if Airbnb stock goes down and my overall compensation goes down with it too. I have a MS offer call lined up and I hope they will come up with a good offer too if not exactly match!
Bonus payout and perf review are now once a year. Mid promo cycles still exist.
Congrats! I have similar yoe and an interview with them coming up. How was the interview from your perspective? Leetcode hard? Anything you recommend focusing on? Thanks!
One was leetcode medium and another hard. The tough part is to get the code running with some test cases well within time, specially when there is a follow up. System design is as usual like any other company.