Pros
This office has a lot of opportunity, especially if you go in with a good attitude and a willingness to learn. You'll make a lot of very valuable industry connections, and gain some great experience working on high-traffic projects. If you get on the right team, you'll also have an excellent work/life balance and a manager who really cares about your personal career goals. There are a few managers and directors who are absolutely wonderful, and working for them is an excellent place to be. This office has a lot of wonderful people.
Cons
Your experience will vary greatly based on which team you work on. I have generally been very lucky with whom I've worked for, but I have some coworkers who feel constantly under pressure to work evenings and weekends, and who are repeatedly thrown under the bus by managers who set unreasonable deadlines that drive their teams into the ground. I have seen multiple situations where very talented, motivated, and promising engineers have been driven from the company by managers who had no regard for the well-being of their team. These managers still work in the office, while their teams are slowly and gradually collapsing, and seeking employment elsewhere. At least one team has lost over half its members in the past year, and if that is not telling all on its own, I don't know what is. The other big concern is the enforced curve. While other companies are moving away from a rigidly-enforced curve when it comes to yearly evaluations, Walmart Labs is embracing it, enforcing it at an organizational level, and tying our yearly bonuses to it. This means that even if everyone on your team is working hard and putting out great product, someone is going to get burned. Even if you get "Meets Expectations"--the on-level rating that means you are performing as you should be--you still only get a portion of of your bonus, not the whole thing. Since this company pays a huge chunk of salary in the form of your bonus, that's usually around 15%-17% of your promised salary potentially out the window, even if you perform well, simply because your manager is required to choose at least one or two people to take the hit every year. Not cool. A lot of people quit over these changes, and it's definitely driving away talent. We shouldn't be punished for striving to work on high-skill teams, and we shouldn't be pitted against our own teammates with our salaries on the line. That does NOT foster a productive and collaborative work environment.
