Kayak's upper management (commercial team) practices nepotism - Commercial (Transport), North America KAYAK Employee Review

2.0
Mar 10, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great product - filters! - Nice offices - Stanford, Berlin, Copenhagen. - Smart people for the most part - Nice colleagues, those in Stamford and Copenhagen. - They won't offer help but if you ask, many team members will happily give you training on stuff. - Okay salary, market rate - Good perks such as tuition allowance etc

Cons

-While the people are smart, many of those in upper management are very fake -Upper management in North America are cliquey, racist and only hire within their own ethnicity - There's a lot of backstabbing that goes around in the commercial team in the US - The commercial team in London is better but the way it's being run is a joke. - A few members of upper management has been rated very low in the assessment tests given by HR to staff, so choose your bosses wisely. - Tech teams aren't as agile as they think and they don't get with the times. - Many internal systems are old, clunky and plain embarrassing. - It depends where you're situated, but many teams esp in Asia and San Francisco have zero work life balance

Explore other reviews about KAYAK

5.0
Jun 29, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Super smart team to learn from and very welcoming people - All voices are heard and ideas can be elevated and tested - Positive environment where many people have been with the company a long time and truly care about its success - Sporadic work travel and offsites - Free lunch in office 2 days a week and bagels, snacks, and drinks all the time - In office gym - Parking commuter benefit

Cons

- Reporting tool is specific to the company and can be a bit of a learning curve to figure out, but again, there are really great people to help you! - Multiple offices throughout the world, where team members are spread across or fully remote, so its rare that the entire team would be in one office together for collaboration - No train commuter benefit to coincide with parking benefit

4.0
Nov 24, 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great benefits: Healthcare had great coverage and affordable monthly payments. I also really appreciated the work-from-wherever policy as well as all the office snacks. Fantastic people: I genuinely loved the people I worked with—they made me feel like I belonged and was appreciated. My manager worked to build me up, something that can't be said for a lot of places. Travel perks: The ability to travel for work made this experience incredibly rewarding.

Cons

Slow mobility: Trying to get promoted felt like a moving goalpost—the expectations changed every six months and made it nearly impossible to get to the next step. Even then, the business was stingy about who gets promoted, which was incredibly discouraging after years of trying to prove myself.

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