BlackBerry Reviews

I have been working at BlackBerry full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Pays well
Great group of people to work with/amongst

Cons – -Far too much unnecessary process
-Nowhere enough training/courses being provided for development as promised during interview
-Opportunities to progress into departments outside current only possible in North America offices, not EMEA.
-Far too many unnecessary departments

Advice to Senior Management – If the same amount of time wasted on processes was actually spent on getting things done, productivity would increase ten fold. I do sincerely hope things do pick up for us with BB10. You have a great group of people here, pay attention to us.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at BlackBerry full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – - Relatively good benefits
 - Top management is excellent

Cons – - Middle management needs to be refreshed
 - Compensation & rewards are lacking
 - Job transitions / promotions / lateral moves needs to be reworked

Advice to Senior Management – As the culture shift progresses you're going to have to find some top notch middle managers. I would suggest looking towards some of your top tier individual contributors and crowdsourcing them on what support they need to do their job. Then keep middle management accountable to the requirements of the individual contributors. It would also be a good idea to recognize and promote some of the individuals who are included in your top talent by creating a process to identify the top 10 percent and groom them for leadership. Managers must be accountable for this leadership grooming with the focus on supporting the front-line workers. A similar process should also be put in place to deal with the bottom 5-15% of employees. They will need to be cut as they are dragging the rest of the company down.

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

I worked at BlackBerry full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Higher than average salary. Good resources for your job. Coworkers are good people to work with. Waterloo is a nice area.

Cons – Top heavy management. Too many layers needed to get anything done. No accountability in some groups. More senior management ego driven than customer driven. We were told openly that our opinion mattered but treated poorly when we did express our opinions on new ideas and way to improve products and process - senior management did not want to listen.

Advice to Senior Management – Thorsten has been doing a good job so far to clean things up - he needs to keep that on track. There is still some house cleaning to be done to get innovation to move faster and more efficiently. Once completed should be a much better company to work for.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at BlackBerry full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – People know and recognize the product (for better or worse). A decent job if you can put aside some of your own personal ambition/standards. Some very talented people may still work there for now.

Cons – A deeply routed political environment. Shrinking company means that those with an acumen for playing the game are in top gear and so career advancement becomes less based on merit and more about manipulation. It could be a good place if you are that kind of person. A lot of dead weight people who should find it very difficult to be employed anywhere else unless it's another bloated corporation with irresponsible hiring practices. They definitely overshadow those who are competent and sometimes it will amaze you that they have made a product. Do not expect to be fulfilled or to reach your potential - you will be inhibited by terrible management and naïve leadership every step of the way. It's not a bad gig if all you want is a paycheck to do as little work as possible - but don't expect to build a career here. You certainly won't acquire skills that transfer very well anywhere else, because most other places want people who do the best work they can and don't tolerate or settle for incompetence and banality. I really can't emphasize this enough. If you join this company expecting to do great work with great tools and great people you will be disappointed.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop congratulating yourselves at every opportunity and realize you have serious and severe deficiencies both within your own ranks (senior management) as well as through the middle layer. Understand that you have acquired baggage that cannot be dropped simply by asking the very people who are themselves baggage to evaluate who should be let go. I hate to say it, but you should honestly consider hiring an external entity to re-interview your employees to determine if they are worth retaining, so that you can avoid the insane political web that has formed in response to the sheer terror you've stricken your employees with over these last years.

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

I have been working at BlackBerry full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – It's great to work with a Global brand on a product line that you see everywhere in peoples hands. Depending on your role, you can really make a difference to the end user/customer which is some what rewarding. Having this company on your CV still has a big impact and whilst the company is in a period of transition it is still appealing to recruiters.

Cons – When joining you will be promised the world and then some but in reality not much career progression happens. There is a lot of politics between departments, there are very tight budgets for training and development and whilst they say they will encourage growth and help you advance to the next level, this does not really happen. If the training is not directly related to your role (even though it's directly related to your long term vision which you discuss and agree with your manager) you can forget it. Too many false promises. Employees fill in no end of surveys and reviews but nothing changes. Bonuses at first (4+ years ago) were good but now it's next to nothing.

Advice to Senior Management – There are too many layers and too many processes in place. You have to continually jump through hoops to get this done. You spend more time following process than it actually takes to get things done to make a difference. Remove the layers and titles and work towards short term goals that are going to motivate and inspire employees. Processes make things long winded and boring and impact creativity in the workplace.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at BlackBerry

Pros – Innovative, compensates well , work life balance

Cons – Delay in decision making, bad managers

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at BlackBerry full-time for more than a year

Pros – Good benefits
Flexible working
Interesting industry
Ability to test pre-release devices

Cons – Overladen with processes nobody adheres to/respects
Silo mentality - you find yourself working against other business units rather than with them
There are far too many political wars going on. I know RIM isn't the only company that experiences this, but for a company currently in a turnaround transition, this is ridiculous. Far too much backstabbing, petty arguments etc
Nobody wants to take accountability for decisions, that's why it takes weeks even months to reach solutions
Some senior executives are grossly incompetent, relying on their teams to help them look good. RIM is a boys club, with senior exec promotions being based on who you know rather than your merit and intelligence

Advice to Senior Management – Fire your indecisive, egotistical, and emotionally unstable senior execs and start looking for realt talent outside of RIM

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

I have been working at BlackBerry for more than 3 years

Pros – Close to other great Tech Groups in Canada

Cons – No Management director
No Commitment to employees
No career path
IS who you know

Advice to Senior Management – Sell

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

I worked at BlackBerry full-time

Pros – The pay, will only take you so far.

Cons – Horrible data to evaluate their employees and nothing to support good performance.

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

I worked at BlackBerry as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – There is still some great talent left in this company. Some of the people that I worked with at RIM are the most talented and driven that I have ever met.

Cons – Management does not understand processes and has a very hack and slash approach to savings. They waste money by cutting a job function only to reinstate it or staff it with contingent workers. It was a very bandaide driven approach.

Advice to Senior Management – Do some long term planning and make sure that a cut will actually save money prior to making the cut and back peddling later

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