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Great company, great products, great E-staff but bad middle/general management and bad financial mgmt. - Member Of Technical Staff VMware Employee Review

3.0
14 Jun 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Greenfield opportunity in a growing company. Original Core group of engineers is extremely smart. Has a very rich roadmap and game changing technology for OS, such opportunities just come about once in many years. Great location and the stock/company has the potential to be bigger than MSFT someday if they execute well.

Cons

With growth, comes a lot of mismanagement. Lot of repetitive projects all over the company that ensures that some WILL get scraped. No Software Development Lifecycle/Process. Poor performance and project management and general maturity of processes in the company. Top Architect level leadership on the non-kernel side, ie: on the VIM- Management Server side is extremely incompetent and poor. If you are just a developer, you will have to work hard to deliver and pay for a lot of mistakes made by creating a problematic general Architecture. There can be a lack of career roadmaps under the leadership of some managers. High-growth in a short term means lack of assimilation and there will be a lot of people that dont know whats going on. No training or career development/educational opportunities.

Explore other reviews about VMware

5.0
24 Jun 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

VMware is a big company but in many ways had a startup vibe. That was great because the resources and infrastructure of a big company were there, but it gave most people I worked with freedom to work on many projects, influence, move around, and contribute in many ways. Plus, many things moved faster than they might at other companies of the same size. Perks were really great including bonuses, events on the campus, opportunities, etc.

Cons

The biggest con is the annual layoff. During most of the years I was there, we were growing like crazy, beating expectations, gaining in stock price, etc. It was always positive and upward. However, every single January, it was known that there would be a round of layoffs, even when all numbers were looking great as they almost always were. Management called it restructuring. But, over the years, some really good people were let go for no apparent reason. Then to add insult to injury, a week or two later, there would be a company quarterly meeting discussing how VMware was doing so well and is still hiring, but they had to make some changes. It always felt dishonest and the sympathy for those let go came across as disingenuous.

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