Pros
The work life balance is amazing here. I suspect that this might depend on the team and area. But I can really disconnect after work without worry. As long as you put in honest effort, everyone is happy with you. The company culture is great. You can tell that everyone cares. A ton of emphasis on maintaining a life outside of work. It’s also great working for a place that customers love and is personal to them. I get friends and acquaintances telling me how much they love shopping at H-E-B all the time. Vacation time used to be a pain point but they overhauled the system a few years ago. Now I have more vacation than my husband who works for a Bay Area tech company.
Cons
It is extremely hard to get promoted in a timely manner here. The Digital tech department is in a very high growth phase, which while good for the company, but means a lot of reorganization for teams, managers, and developers. I’ll be going on my 7th manager in 6 years soon. I started in an Entry level engineering position though I was quickly approaching the next title skill wise. Every manager has their own criteria and opinions for what is needed for each level. I only received a long overdue promotion after involving middle management above my direct manager and demanding clear goals and metrics to meet for promotion. Some people have purposefully switched teams and areas in order to get specific managers that are fair about promotions. To add salt to the wound, they happily over-level new hires constantly. I am now bracing myself for having to fight for myself and an appropriate title again. In short, to get promoted you have to get lucky to have a manager who likes you enough to promote you.