It’s been a good couple of months for Twitter. It’s gone public, finally added a woman to its board of directors and now has been named the No. 1 tech company to work at in Glassdoor’s annual survey of the 50 best places to work. Twitter not only grabbed the top spot on the tech list – displacing Facebook -- but it did so during the first year it made it onto the list at all, points out Scott Dobroski, a Glassdoor spokesman. Previously, the company didn’t have enough reviews to be considered.
Twitter Takeover
Many of the comments made by current and past Twitter employees mentioned the benefits of working with smart, talented and humble co-workers. While some may find “humble” to be a rare thing in Silicon Valley, it’s a cultural trait that is often driven from the top down, starting with the CEO. "[Twitter CEO Dick Costolo] is very transparent and speaks to employees more than once a quarter," Dobroski says. "He's known to walk down the hallways and check in with people." The company also provides great flexibility, allowing engineers to work on a range of projects rather than restricting them to one area. Additionally, the company runs Twitter University for engineers, which provides ways to develop niche skills. "It's the ideal balance of fun and very cool work. You got all the resources to be awesome. Food, tech giants, drinks, unbelievable perks," a Twitter software engineer in New York wrote in his Glassdoor review.
Facebook Fall
Facebook fell to No. 3 on the tech list after having held the top spot for the past three years. What caused the slip? "Although Facebook didn't have a huge change in its rating (4.5 this year vs. 4.7 last year), a number of people said it was losing its startup culture as the company grows after the IPO and feels more corporate," Dobroski says. Indeed, one employee wrote that the company is “no longer a place for the inexperienced-but-motivated worker to learn on the job” and is “taking far fewer risks on new hires … In aggregate, this means less creativity, more politics, and more fear of failure.”
Ranking Up
Another newcomer to the list was eBay, which ranked 21st. "It's tough to say why eBay had not been on the list before. But the themes we saw again and again were renewed encouragement to innovate and it was an exciting time to work at the company," Dobroski says. Other first-timers include Foster City, Calif., based Guidewire Software, which sells to insurance companies, and Interactive Intelligence, a call-center software solutions outfit in Indianapolis. Of the approximately 300,000 companies listed on Glassdoor, the average rating is 3.2 on a scale of 5. In order to make the Top 50 list, a company needs to score at least a 3.8 and have at least 50 reviews and a workforce of 1,000 or more.
