Esri Reviews

Pros – Flexible Work Hours, Nice Colleagues

Cons – No Transparancy, Lack of Communication

Pros – Tiny on-campus library
Redlands is cheap place to live but for a reason
Cafe is nice, but food is a little expensive, but cafe is nice

Cons – Management lacks experience outside of Esri
Work is very monotonous
Company is no longer growing
No career path will be laid out for you
Salary is LOW
Nothing is free, no free food, no free coffee, even at the conferences nothing is free
Cube farm - make sure you like working in a cube

Advice to Senior Management – Directors - find management that has experience

Pros – - Stable job
- Get paid for hours you work

Cons – - No career path
- Esri hires externally for senior positions instead of promoting employees internally
- Company is structured around individual egos, resulting in ineffective silos
- HR is not an employee advocate, and not empowered to tame overgrown ego employees

Advice to Senior Management – - Start promoting high performing employees to senior positions (look internally first)
- Let go of the extreme non-performers, as their drag on the organization is increasing
- Reflect on why the main positive Esri reviews on Glassfish are from Interns and not full-time employees
- Internal systems management efficiency has tanked over the last 2 years and is a larger drain on the organization than it should be.
- Start eliminating the ego based silos within Esri (require knowledge dissemination) so we can provide better solutions at lower cost.

Pros – Medical benefits and beautiful campus

Cons – Limited communication regarding overall company initiatives; would live to hear from sr management in an all staff meeting setting

Pros – - flexible hours
- training and tuition assistance
- great place for GISers, cartographers and geographers to begin their career
- get to play with the newest GIS toys
- very stable company and employment

Cons – - very little perks compared to other companies of similar size
- company has a flat structure; almost non-existent chance of promotion
- no snacks or food provided; cafe and vending machines are not subsidized
- the corporate side of HR is out-of-touch with nature of work
- internet usage is monitored, controlled by ineffective web filter software
- no incentive for younger employees to stay on or remain motivated
- no team building events/practices
- very few vacation days

Advice to Senior Management – 1. Provide SOME workplace perks (at least free donuts, good coffee, subsidized lunch, etc)
2. Provide better benefits (childcare, housing allowance, pet insurance, etc)
3. If no promotion structure, employees should be given incentives in other forms (increased vacation, 401K contribution bonus, gift cards, etc)
4. Restructure corporate HR employees and practices

Pros – Great cafeteria, decent parking, good location in Redlands, California.

Cons – HORRIBLE management. I was grilled four times over three months for a contract position, and then after finally getting an offer, I get placed into a group run by a guy who refuses to embrace new technology. The ONLY group that didn't use OO programming methodologies. And his incompetent manager backed him despite pressure from all over the company to give in and adapt a more modern style. I wanted the job specifically to build my experience with advanced OO technologies, but it was more like a bait-n-switch. I left after six months. Oh BTW, I learned in a company meeting that as of 2011, they had NO DISASTER RECOVERY PLAN. None. And better yet, they were FINE WITH IT. Keep in mind these idiots are in Southern California, in the heart of Earthquake Central. Keep that in mind before you do business with them. They also won't hire you as a permanent employee unless you have a degree... yet they will use contractors without degrees. Pretty lame.

Advice to Senior Management – Get a clue. Get your priorities straight and start scrutinizing your long-term people and see if maybe they're the reason you aren't keeping people around. I know quite a few people who have left since I was there; many people are unhappy.

Pros – Reasonable Salary
Long-term employment with few if any layoffs
Hourly salary compensates for long hours when needed
Very centralized company

Cons – Everything has to be approved by owner
No budget for employee activities
Little advancement prospects if not located in Southern California

Pros – I was scheduled for 2 phone interviews .First one was with the manager of Software Products team and after clearing that I received an email for the second interview with the Software Quality Assurance Director.Both interviews went well and I received the offer after 2 days.
I liked the short interview process.Interviews were very easy and they also increased my hourly wage from $25/hour to $27/hour upon my request.

Cons – They don't provide relocation expense.

Pros – This is a great place to work once I learned how it works. Esri has a very low turnover rate, once you're in, you're in. The company supports me to perpetuate the same position indefinitely. There's no cap for the salary of my role and I get the same annual salary increase regardless of how I perform. I don't need to grow professionally. More challenging roles are filled by newer people. Best yet, management prefers employees to not be interested in career growth.

Cons – The competition is reinventing the business model... I think. That is if making similar software user-friendly becomes marketable.

Advice to Senior Management – Just don't retire. There is literally nobody else in the company who can do your job.

Pros – location in so cal is nice, great colleagues to work with, great ideas, GIS industry leader

Cons – focus is on prepping for its annual conference in San Diego and Palm Springs, planning, only dev is working!

Advice to Senior Management – you hired the best, now let them do their jobs please! Get rid of the annual review process, it truly is a joke, provide better compensation for those doing the work: the top 20% performers should be rewarded as such! the next 50% doing as their told should be retained and please get rid of the remaining 30% not doing sh&&&W#t!