Pros
OpenTable Mumbai has one of the best, modern design, awesomely decorated offices in India. It is centrally located, provides standing desks, has a decent snack and happy hour policy. (All of the above is negated due to wfh in covid times, their heavy investment has become dead) Each employee is provided with a Mac and multiple monitors at work, so facilities are good. Work life balance is good in Operations as one is required to operate only during IST hours. One does not get disturbed out of office hours. Alerts out of office hours are handled by different offices in other countries in their timezone. The work atmosphere is casual, people are free to walk upto any other employee in the company and talk to him/her. People are generally helping and mind their own business. Lots of tools, technologies and processes which can be a good ground for learning. Open source is encouraged, code is open for reading. No work is big or small here, if you can fix it or improve, take ownership and do it (don’t expect any rewards though). One will also find a lot of legacy tech.
Cons
Mumbai Ops is a small team, less than 10 members, hence limited scope to grow in the long term. Better to plan for 3-4 years with the company (3 year stock vesting). Compensation looks attractive on paper with bonus and stocks. The bonus calculation is so complicated that even the best of chartered accountant can’t decipher the amount you will receive. The stock amount is greatly reduced due to tax deductions, transaction surcharges and dollar conversion fees. The company calls the stocks as “golden handcuffs” and uses it to its advantage. When you leave the company (or laid off or kicked out), the stocks would be forfeited. “Salary correction” is a forbidden word. Compensation changes during annual reviews never matches with your effort and ratings (at least I haven’t seen for myself or for my team in the 4 years I worked here). The company is almost 22 years old, hence has its share of old products, tools and technologies. They are trying hard to give up legacy systems, but the progress has been extremely slow (and frustrating). The company has a big share of people who are with them for more than a decade, golden handcuffed, happy and content in their positions. The organisation is engineering/product driven and operations always takes a backseat. This blocks introduction of new tools, technology or even upgrading new ones. Sometimes, the legacy mindset of the leaders also comes into play. Managers are treated as God, you can’t question manager’s decision, especially during review ratings and compensation changes. The HR team, called as “People and Culture” team, is a dumb spectator and sides with the company leads. The People and Culture team is only visible while preparing the job offer letter and non existent afterwards. Although the office infrastructure is great, of late, the culture has been going down. They’ve invested heavily in sprucing up the office (spent unnecessarily and extravagantly), but not ready to invest in their own people. Inspite of good efforts, performance and receiving a good annual rating, many (including in tech) were handed a pink-slip due to “business decision” and were unceremoniously kicked out (during covid time 400+ were kicked out). This act showed the true character of the company (and its leaders). The company has shown that this will be the culture going forward (substandard hiring and firing at will).
