- Unusually large number of incompetant middle management that really dont know what they are doing. Weird heirachy, lots of mis-trust/spying on team members - really bad culture that feels hostile at times.
- "delivery leads" & "product managers" that are non-technical & have no clue what they are doing. Very political & most are bullies that create this weird culture - they seem to be running the show here, while the talented technical staff are treated badly.
- They concentrate entirely on what Domain is doing - where is the innovation?
- Old tech stack and no bigger long term vision of improvement - teams dont talk to each other at all.
- realestate as an industry is on the decline, which is why they are trying hard to branch out into other projects - especially with Finance/loans, but at the expense of their existing systems, they are investing heavily in fad functional programming - really hard to find developers with that toolset so most people come on board having to learn from scratch - that takes time and is dragged out generally by a lack of communication/culture between the teams in general.
- Working at REA is like dog years - 1 year feels like 7, there is a relatively high turn over rate - its not uncommon for people to leave within a few months of getting here.
Dont believe the hype they sell you on being a top place to work in Australia - the "sleep pod" is sitting in the back of the garage, there arent enough desks and people are often sharing desk space - the "amazing" office is not so amazing, especially with the desk situation and terrible heating/cooling - feels like a sweatshop.
- They outsource a lot of their tech to China, if you are looking for innovation as a dev, steer clear of this place.
- middle/senior management are so incompetant - nothing has changed since the mass walkout.
- Pay is some of the lowest in the industry.
- Every month I stay, I am losing my skill - most devs dont last and jump ship as soon as they can.
