An amazing 5 months - Senior Software Development Engineer Zillow Employee Review

5.0
15 Jun 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

What's better than a job that provides 3 weeks of vacation? A job that provides 3 weeks of vacation, plus 2 'hackweeks' in the year, where you get to team up with anyone else and let your creativity run wild. (I'd even trade one of my vacation weeks for an extra hackweek). To top it off, it doesn't hurt spending the remaining weeks innovating with dedicated and motivated teammates. In five months here, I've had a chance to work on a pivotal feature, win at hackweek, and know that the senior folks are listening if I need them to. Zillow places a lot of emphasis on culture and looks for ways to keep innovating. If you're talented and motivated, consider spending your energy at Zillow, and my experience here so far says you'll get more energized in return.

Cons

Some of the legacy code can be challenging to navigate. On the positive side, most dev managers seem to be open to refactoring small chunks of code despite the obvious risks.

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Zillow Response
11y
Thank you for your feedback! I'm really glad that you're having such a great experience here, and in particular that you're finding the work interesting and impactful. As you know, we try to keep our product teams as small as possible and allow them to be as autonomous as possible. This allows for more creativity and for the teams to feel more ownership of their area of expertise. I'm also glad that you like hackweeks so much -- so do I. We have had great experiences with them over the years, and we will definitely continue the tradition.

Explore other reviews about Zillow

5.0
8 Feb 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The posts about AWS culture infiltrating Zillow must be pretty team or person specific, as I've seen nothing but leaders who really care about their teams and the business. Middle managers can often drag down morale and culture - and working remote makes that hard to see/fix. But generally, the culture and support at Zillow is WAY better than any other tech company I've worked at (or heard about from friends). Fully remote with decent benefits and people who generally care about each other is fantastic (and hard to find in today's market). For those complaining about bad culture - I'd suggest you look at another role in another org, you might be pleasantly surprised the ZG people first culture is still strong.

Cons

Fully remote makes it hard to get the right visibility and promotions and ratings are unfortunately tied to whether senior leaders see your work and know who you are. You have to make an effort to be "seen" and that's hard to do remote. The news cycle is noisy with lawsuits, but I think a lot of that is because we're a big name with a big target on our back. A judge just ruled in Zillow's favor, against Compass.

2
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Zillow Response
3mo
Thank you for taking the time to share your review. It’s great to hear that leadership support, flexibility, and a people-first culture have stood out in your experience. We also recognize that visibility and growth can feel different in a remote environment, and feedback like this helps highlight where continued focus and clarity matter. We appreciate you sharing your perspective.
3.0
8 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You can make good money here.

Cons

In sales, job can change often. For example: I was making good money and excelling because I am a relationship Sales person. Then they changed it to where you get the sale, and instead of being able to grow that account via that relationship you just broke into, you have to pass it to an account manager and go back to cold/robo calling. You "book" of business you recive to prospect from is a lottery. I received a book of prospects/accounts that most of the were low income, or senior living properties. They don't have a budget and have a line of renter on a waitlist. No way to convince them to spend money on advertising but you still have the same quota.

2
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Zillow Response
2w
Thank you for sharing such a detailed perspective. We understand that frequent changes to roles, account ownership and business priorities can have a real impact on relationship-building and the day-to-day experience in sales. We’re glad to hear compensation was a positive part of your time at Zillow, and we appreciate you being candid about where the model and structure felt frustrating. Feedback like yours helps us better understand how these changes are experienced across teams as the business evolves.
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