[apohn]

I worked for an established software company (~3000 employees) that had unlimited vacation.

How much vacation people really took varied greatly by managers and which part of the organization you were in.

There were no minimums and no real philosophy or best practices around vacation. The core engineering groups had good managers and people took 4 - 6 weeks (spread over the year) and would completely disconnect from work during their vacations. People could take 2-3 weeks in a row without much fuss being made.

With exception of support, if you were in a customer facing role your manager was probably a workaholic and made it very difficult to take a vacation or even enjoy vacation when you took it. However, they would constantly trot out unlimited vacation as a perk and act like it was your fault for not taking vacation. I knew people who disconnected for a week for the birth of their baby and felt completely unprotected and overwhelmed with backload of work by the time they came back.

I'm never going back to a company with "unlimited" vacation again unless I know the group I report into strongly protects and encourages at least 3+ weeks of vacation