Improve Upper Management and Business Practice
Pros
Many people are willing to do their best and accommodating. It is a beauty to see everyone marches in unison once the company-wide initiative and expectations are clearly communicated. PayPal encourages entrepreneurial culture, provides executive sponsorship for worthwhile ideas/prototypes, tries to attract technologists and attempts to compensate well. Executives express their appreciations to little guys in various ways including company wide meetings and corporate communications. There are SPOT awards to individuals and sometimes teams for going beyond their call of duty. PayPal celebrates a lot at both company and individual team levels. PayPal encourages employees to have a work-life balance and provides tools and resources. Some people make work place fun by hosting social events both alcoholic and non-alcoholic. There are communities withing PayPal with many helping hands.
Cons
Too much lip service and too few quality managers. Too many architects, directors and VPs. Many projects get started but do not really come to fruition or even road tested. Process heavy and agile practices/expectations misunderstood at many levels. Many leaders do not necessarily understand domains that they own beside how they can take advantage of it to move up/out to the next level. Some key leaders think that PayPal is quite bloated. Even then, whatever the work force that was trimmed in 2012 for PayPal to be lean and fast, the growth in Bangalore and Chennai seems to replace far beyond those numbers. Nepotism and selected consuls seem to exist. Some leaders force fit key roles with people from their previous companies regardless of qualifications. Some San Jose teams seem to be constantly catching up due to difficulties in getting requisitions approved while Bangalore and Chennai seem have problem filling up their requisitions, which no one really questions. Most San Jose folks treat the work-life balance as academics.
