Exceptional in its early years, but the ebay/paypal employer brand is damaged - Anonymous employee eBay Employee Review

2.0
Sep 30, 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Mostly comparable to other technology companies with regards to salary and benefits. There are some exceptional people who work there, and if you're fortunate enough to land on their team, within their organization or business unit, your chances of having a good experience in the current environment are higher. Good advice for any job seeker, make sure you know exactly what you're getting into before signing on.

Cons

Not competitive or innovative with regards to the WOW extras found at companies like Google, Facebook. With definite exceptions, the company values are mostly demonstrated by new and mid level employees. Senior leaders appear to work by a different set of values and this has eroded eBay's brand as an employer of choice over the last 5 years. It feels like an "old boys" network mentality that has become increasingly politicized. The company's women's initiative in particular is disappointing with respect to the embellishment of progress and the credit senior leaders have taken for the advances made by over the years by volunteer grassroots individuals and employee groups.

Explore other reviews about eBay

5.0
Jul 9, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Challenging work, great company culture. There is something genuinely motivating about building for a brand that everyone knows and uses: the scale and real-world stakes make the work feel meaningful. The AI work specifically is at the frontier of applied AI: production systems, hard problems in agentic workflows and evaluation, and real customer impact. Good work-life balance. Leadership is more engaged and technically credible than I expected from a company this size — when I built a prototype, senior stakeholders engaged substantively and supported continued investment quickly. Competitive compensation, sharp colleagues, and a well-sized Austin office with a focused, collaborative feel.

Cons

Like any tech company, there is some legacy code to deal with which can cause friction. That said, eBay has made meaningful progress on modernizing the tech stack and has genuinely embraced the latest tools: AI development here uses current frameworks and infrastructure, not decade-old patterns. Large company coordination processes (security reviews, cross-team alignment) can slow things that could move faster, and vendor partnerships add some communication overhead. But the reach of what you build makes it worth the extra overhead.

3.0
Jun 20, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Relaxing culture. family first. Stock performance is generally good for the recent two years and huge benefit if you're eligible for ESPP. Stable product with large customer base means you get opportunity to work on project with real impact.

Cons

1. Blind push for AI and leadership expect unrealistic efficiency improvement 2. Layoff every year in Feb (2024, 2025, 2026) and sometimes can feel the tension in team 3. Legacy tech stack with isolated and fragile infrastructure. Developer friction is a real pain. You get random infra down every once a while and internal support becomes even worse since they started offshoring to LCOL area in 2025. 4. Hiring freeze in San Jose... just expect more layoff coming up + frequent meetings at night / early morning across regions

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All