Pros
Most people are aware of the unusual perks of this company (beer Friday, game room, etc.). In addition to these perks, I would say that F5 has a social conscience that most companies don't have and I commend them on these efforts. The benefits package is robust at a time when many companies have scaled back. The employees are very intelligent people that are motivated by the technological advantage of the product over competitors. The momentum and potential of this company are impressive and I absolutely love the idea of F5, it's the day-today reality of it that needs work.
Cons
They solicit employees pretty heavily to vote in the 'awards' so the fact that they win them is not surprising. You will be reeled in by all the awards and perks only to find that a MOUNTAIN of work is dumped on you. F5 has great benefits and is a cool company, but have no doubt that you will work very hard. They run so lean that most employees have unrealistic workloads that require nights and weekends just to keep up. Standard Operating Procedures are almost non-existant and you will in many cases have to fight just to meet industry standards. Projects are being scoped at too high a level to get an accurate assessment of timeline and budget, then handed off for implementation to the people who should have scoped it and now have to execute under unrealistic project goals. While their technologies are superior, they have lost touch and I find it shocking that a technical company is so archaic in actual execution processes and tools. You can be working on the exact same thing as someone in a different department and both sides would benefit from a collaborative effort, but the lack of communication at the management level causes redundant work flows all over the company. If you take a look at the details of every review on here, you will notice a pattern in both good and bad reviews of the areas that were marked with lower scores. The communication breakdown within and between departments is degrading the overall culture of F5 and I would say that this is the single biggest threat to the company. While they may see this, they may not realize how critical this has become and I am not sure if they are taking strong enough steps to fix this in time.