Autodesk Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Autodesk

Pros – if you have a dog, you get more understanding when you need to take care of it than you do when you need beg for flexibility regarding a child. Disappear for half a day for a vet appointment, np. See a child's performance for 1.5 hours in the morning, get told you're not dedicated and you don't have a career path, even though you are the primary care giver. So, if you have a dog, great place. If you are a male with a child, tough site.

Cons – Who cares about a sabbatical once every 4 years when European employees get a minimum of 6 weeks vacation (length of a sabbatical) without considering public holidays? US employees are worked like dogs for 60% of market wages. Stock doesn't move and company doesn't pay a dividend. Other negative comments about mgt from march 2013 postings are spot on.

Advice to Senior Management – And execs, if you could ever find the time to stop treating this company like your playground or piggy bank, find another "job"

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Autodesk full-time

Pros – lots of people who are really talented and hard working

Cons – Management has constantly re-organized the company every year for the last 5 years. Result is chaos. No body knows what they're doing. Everytime people start working productively again, they pull the rug out again and everyone starts all over. It's amazing they haven't killed our business yet. Too much investment in future, unproven technology and business models while core businesses go begging for basic investment. This leaves major issues with customer satisfaction.

Advice to Senior Management – Pull your head out of the cloud for a few minutes every week and go talk to customers. Not the specially chosen customers, get a broader view. You are running away from a great business to be California cool, but go see the rest of the world where most of the design and engineering take place.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Autodesk full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Good smart people, trying to do their best
Reasonable benefits but they have diminished over the years
Flexible work hours in some areas of the business

Cons – Politics have taken over. The politically correct option overrules doing the right thing for the business, and the customer
Technology and architecture takes a back seat to the manager's desire to manage up and make themselves look good
The deep management structure makes it very difficult for technologists to get things done. The engineering teams sit idle waiting for management to dictate what or what not gets done
Most of the management have lost their technology skills - yet they wont let anyone else make technology decisions. They protect their turf at all costs by playing politics with their team - unfortunately the technologists become scapegoats.
Sadly, good technologists do not last very long, and leave for greener pastures.

Advice to Senior Management – The company is slowly dying internally due to the politics. Talented technologists are choosing to leave because they cannot get things done in the politically rich environment. Ask yourselves why the outside world is running at such a faster rate than the company?. Ask yourselves why good technologists are leaving? Try to remember, technology is what will make or break the company. Reinvent yourselves to give technology and the technologists a role in the company direction. If the company continues to embrace politics and shun good technologists, how will it be able to compete?

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

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

Pros – Great technology, nice benefits, great stock plan for employees, interesting work.

Cons – Senior Leadership team prefers to think and theorize rather then focus on managing the company for serious growth. Many silos are allowed to exist and divisions are given far to much autonomy. The company could have 2X the revenue if the C level executives had serious business experience.

Advice to Senior Management – Time to grow up and stop treating the company as a hobby. Amazed the board has not sought changes.

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

Pros – Working with industry leading customers; Global experience

Cons – Insulated management culture, based on relationships, & disconnected from customers and rank & file workers; Ineffective management decisions are covered over with annual reorganizations, with little management accountability and blame assigned to subordinates. Cultural & market segment parity with Microsoft; a large ship that has lost its way.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Autodesk for more than 3 years

Pros – Benefits packages tend to be very competitive. There is a decent work/life balance, and generally the teams get along well.

Cons – Senior management is not interested in growing teams or promoting from within. They drive toward the stock holder value much more than employee or customer value.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – The breadth of products and industries Autodesk covers is the best kept secret - this company is working on health care solutions, breakthroughs in sustainability, 3D printing and reality capture that are unbelievable (yet absolutely true), architectue incorporating revolutionary green solutions, gorgeous new automobile designs, media and entertainment frontiers (last 17 years of Academy Awards for Best Visual Effects all have used Autodesk software) and it goes on. Brilliant people, a culture based on teamwork and collaboration, cool offices in wonderful locations globally and huge flexibility as to working remotely.

Cons – Working in the tech space means you have to love the need for speed - Autodesk is no exception. As the company migrates its platforms to the Cloud and simultaneously keeps launching new apps and products, there is always something to do +/or learn about. This is the place to be if you love challenges, have a tolerance for ambiguity, and are self-driven. To accomodate all of this, the company is huge on worklife/balance - you just have to be able to meter your own choices and deliver results.

Advice to Senior Management – Increase the number of college grads to accelerate skills on the Web, Mobile, Social, UI and UX fronts!

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

Former Employee – worked at Autodesk full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – Autodesk is a place where honest, well intentioned folks work on interesting technologies that affect the world in countless ways. The company has the scope to make big things happen and often does.

Cons – The company culture is timid when it comes to taking risks with products and business. The well worn path can often be a rut.

Advice to Senior Management – Too often people with bright ideas get smothered with the wet blanket of mediocre middle managers that are only concerned about SMART goals for the Q or year.

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

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

Pros – Great team spirit, lots of collaboration opportunities - across products, across teams, across geographies. Employee benefits among the best in the business. Trusted exec management team. Suitable transparency into the health of the business - strong guidance from the top with frequent communication to global workforce.

Cons – Middle management seems pushed to limits - lots of paranoia and paralysis! Many decisions can only be made through "consensus with the world". Too many restructuring exercises resulting in job losses, product retirements and staff fatique.

Advice to Senior Management – Spend more time getting to know your staff - don't make rash organizational decisions without proper understanding of how it affects people, products and ultimately your customers!

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

Former Employee – worked at Autodesk full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Flexible work hours: some were at work by 7 am, others not until 10 am. In my case, it would sometimes change from day to day. Able to work from home occasionally. Coupled with the flexible hours, it helped to offset the ocasional late-night conference call with other countries. My co-workers are always helpful.

Cons – Because of having offices around the world, occasional conference calls late in the evening (9 to 10 pm) or early morning (8 to 9 am). Some groups, including mine, experienced a lot of shuffling of managers. I have lost count, but I think I have had 7 different managers in 4 years.

Advice to Senior Management – Find a way to reduce the number of priority changes, or at least make it seem as if the priorities are not always changing. For example, a shorter release cycle would would allow for a more natural "change" in priorities instead of midway through a release cycle.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend