F5 Networks Reviews

Current Employee – been working at F5 Networks full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Great Place to work, good payment

Cons – Customer shifting to cloud. Product in the market goes to commodity.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at F5 Networks full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great people and exciting product line

Cons – There can be long hours

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to keep a fun atmosphere to overcome negative aspects of long hours

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at F5 Networks full-time for more than a year

Pros – Negotiable flexible work hours and friendly atmosphere which makes one feel welcome. Very multicultural and inclusive. Opportunities for career growth as company is expanding.

Cons – Hiring process is long so might need to wait it out. Entry positions sometimes do not renumerate at the same rate as competitors.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at F5 Networks full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Balanced life and work, not very lay-back, not much over time as well. There are some talented engineers as well.

Cons – A lot of office politics in some groups, a lot of complex relationships, brothers, buddy, previous company co-workers. Some managers are very good at politics and kiss ass, no knowledge or work ethics.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at F5 Networks full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Excellent focus on work/life balance, opportunities to travel and work with great people.

Cons – Growing pains right now impacting the organization can be frustrating and disruptive.

Advice to Senior Management – Make a decision and stick with it.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at F5 Networks full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Small number of layers in the organization
Hard workers everywhere keeping everyone from feeling as though they are the only one rowing
Feels like family in many groups adding to enjoyment of being here

Cons – Need more vision related messaging coming from above to help relay to customers

Advice to Senior Management – Keep John McAdam. He has created trust with the employees and an approach-ability to the executive team.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at F5 Networks full-time for more than a year

Pros – - They pay higher than the market plus quarterly bonuses and shares (RSU) - so the money is great, thus it is the main reason to make you want to stay.
- Technology keeps running forwards (sometimes too fast, which leads to poor output), so it is always interesting.
- Most folks are above average on the technical side and OK on the personal side
- Facilities are running from OK to old and lacking of maintenance
- Nice gifts on holidays
- Some tolerance for eccentric employee behavior, like strange cloths (mostly in Seattle) and alcohol at the cubic (sometimes this is negative)

Cons – - The company tries to run as lean as possible, which means every person is squeezed to the bone - being pushed to work overtime, night, weekends and holidays, just to meet unrealistic deadlines while trying to accomplish tons of work, which should be shared by more than one person.
So, realistically, they pay to one person a 1.25 or 1.5 salary to do the work of two or almost two employees.
- Although that, there are islands where there are folks who do very little, on the same role and salary level, but managers do not divert them to help the overloaded employees. They are the lucky ones.
- Travel, even transatlantic, is always at the economic class, for almost all employee levels, except for the very top managers.
- Most of the 1st and 2nd line managers are terrible. Appointed and promoted mostly by seniority rather than by being suitable to be managers. Simply try to run by the lean atmosphere and push the employees to meet deadlines, without really helping them achieve it or questioning how realistic are the targets.
- Many veteran folks create just a few "close circle" groups that control the company and decide who's in and who's out, even if the employee is good - aiming to keep their regime.
- Shortage of resources and tools (hardware and software) to accomplish your work, which also makes it hard to meet deadlines.
- Low number of annual vacation days (to make you stay at work...)
- Upper management doesn't really care about how things are doing below them. Only come to do the "showoff" presentations to the crowd, but don't wish to hear what is really happening on the "factory floor" thus not meeting with non-managers.

Advice to Senior Management – F5 is known to be great for its salary, technology enthusiasm and open culture. This is all nice and good, but not enough. The company is both rapidly growing and moving from its safe ground of networking, into the security realm, which the company it is not really ready for nor know how to deal with.
The security world has many veteran giants who rule the land and know the game. It is not the networking world, and you will learn it with some harsh lessons. The current company culture and way of work is not ready for this challenge, of paranoid attitude, much research and very short response time.
The company is currently breathing its own past glory perfume, from the ADC world, not realistic about what is corrupting it from the inside of it and how to face the coming challenges that will come from the security uncharted land.

Some words to the CEO - Show yourself more on the factory floor (also meaning at all branches, not just Seattle). Take single employees to one-on-one talk (let them know they can ask for it but also randomly pick ones), do focus groups with several employees at once - encourage folks to talk freely with you, without being afraid to be punished for speaking their minds. Let your all-levels managers know that no part of the company is hidden from you - so they can't hide their wrong doings.

Drastically improve the way managers are selected, mostly when it is their first managerial role. Don't count only on their seniority. I realize it looks good to promote from the inside, but base it on skills and ability, not just by counting years of service.

Strengthen HR:
- Currently they only execute what the mangers tell them to, thus being the "human shield" for the managers. - Reconstruct the dismissal process - you lose good folks just because they did not were friendly to the correct people - make sure that someone is dismissed only if it is really the last resort and no other options in the company fit that person.
- If you dare - try to do a post mortem for dismissal events, see how things went wrong and what could have been done better. Talk with ex-employees, you may discover some surprising stuff, to say the least.
- Spot, with HR, not only by what managers recommend, the talented ones and create career paths for them, so they will have a reason to stay in the company.

- Watch very closely the remote branches, they always need much more care and attention than the HQ.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at F5 Networks full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Compensation, culture, people, workspace and mgmt

Cons – Little to no cons that I can think of at this time.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep it up.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at F5 Networks full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – I am a 7+ year employee at F5, and with every year I find the challenge of work very rewarding. The people at F5 are extremely talented, and fantastic to work with. I have recommended many past colleagues apply here at over the years.

Cons – Sorry, there are none. I'm really trying hard to come up with a single one, and am drawing a huge blank.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at F5 Networks full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – F5 has a great work-life balance, with many work challenges, and top notch people. Exec team is world class and keep us moving in the right direction.

Cons – With so many things that F5 is trying, sometimes it is hard to know what everyone is doing, so communication could use improvement.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company