If you're an incompetent programmer, you will have many opportunities to advance into the senior management jobs.
Pros
Hilton Hotels has a large IT community, thanks to the merger it had with Promus some years back. The nature of IT to create software and other apps for the business is commendable. It is primarily a Microsoft organization, but there are other opportunities for Unix, Java, and VLDB work. It is also a great place for aggressive, ladder-climbing people who are looking for a high-level management position.
Cons
Unfortunately, there is far too much upper management within the IT group. We often see first-year programmers reporting directly to directors. We also often see far too many levels of management, layered within a department whose primary function should be to provide the best product for our guests and the personnel who interact directly with the guests. Hilton also has a strange habit of promoting employees for odd and often unknown reasons. Never have I seen a better working example of the saying: "Those who can, work; those who cannot, manage." (paraphrased) Also, the obscene amount of high-level managers invariably leads to incredibly slow and irrational decisions. Couple this with with a development cycle that looks a little like Agile, and you have a preponderance of chaos with people constantly running around with their hair on fire. For the employees in the trenches who spend most of their time fixing the junk that the outsourced consultants manage to continually churn out, promotions are non-existent. All exempt employees (programmers) who genuinely work hard and are good at what they do will never find themselves in a different position, because everything would grind to a halt without them. It is true that, once in a position, a Hilton programmer will never advance. One other thing is the pathetic health and dental plans that keep getting more expensive and less effective year by year.
