Autodesk Reviews

Pros

Superior products, good salaries and benes.

Cons

Often there is a lack of opportunity for advancement.

Advice to Senior Management

Give employees a reason to stay and grow!

Pros

Autodesk has been one of the great software companies for almost 30 years. The products lead the market, the people are smart, hardworking, and collaborative, and their are tremendous opportunities to grow, develop, and contribute.

Cons

The location in San Rafael is a bit of a commute unless you live in Marin.
Only 2 weeks of vacation per year, but you do get Xmas week off andva 6 week sabbatical after 4 years.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to drive results and improve margins. Continue to invest in developing people. More aggressively manage investments to drive growth.

Pros

Looks good in your resume.
Nice working environment, friendly staffs.
Have the chance to learn about culture in an international company.

Cons

Not high enough salary compare to the same level of work.
The company is too big to take risky. So, it could be quite dull after working for a couples of years.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to be in the employee's shoes and communicates more with the teams you managed.
No more meaningless meetings and surveys.

Pros

Work is consistently challenging. The company itself is great about supporting work/home life balance. The benefits are fantastic as well.

Cons

Innovation is not well-supported. Employees are not compensated for significant achievements outside of their daily work. The company is pretty old and spread across many locations, making collaboration and inspiration tough to come by.

Pros

- Good work life balance.
- Interesting projects.
- Interesting technologies on the research side
- Great SF office.
- Thu beer busts.

Cons

- Not able to orient all of the teams on common goals.
- Not able to take advantage of internet because of internal politics.
- Main products are all battleships...changing course towards innovative or current design thinking is difficult to impossible.
- Some people have been there forever and expect and assume you know the intricacies of their processes.
- Not a very collaborative environment. Want to make decisions before discussing options.

Pros

It's a company that seems to understand and take seriously its obligations to community
The people you work with are typically very bright

Cons

Not much emplowerment
There could be a sharper focus on the importance of manager/employee relationships
Managers tend to be upward looking as opposed to being focused on the development and well-being of their teams

Advice to Senior Management

Keep moving in the direction you're going in - you're on the right track

Pros

- Extremely flexible hours
- Fitness center on site (or fitness subsidy if not near the company gym)
- Best holiday schedule of any company I've ever worked for (typical holidays plus week off from Christmas Eve to New Years Day).

Cons

- Many late meetings with Asia Pacific offices interferes with life/work balance.
- Doesn't matter whether you've worked for the company for 1 week or 20 years, you get the same 12 days vacation per year. 6 week sabbatical every 4 years (that has to be taken all at once- not broken up). Would be nice to get acrue more vacation over time.
- Lots of workaholics, so getting promoted requires a lot of work.

Advice to Senior Management

Reduce management structure - flatten the organization. Why are there so many Directors and Senior Managers with no or few direct reports?

Pros

* Great benefits package - love the sabbatical!
* Not afraid to try something new - always trying to find the next best way to do something
* Really, Really great people! These people have become like an extended family to me.

Cons

* Never seem to find a good path for promotion. Hard to move up if you are not in the inner circle
* Teams can be split across regions making for some long hours
* Vacation for long term employees! Sabbatcical is great but after being here 15+ years it would be ince to get more than 2 weeks vacation a year!

Advice to Senior Management

* Offer more chances for promotion
* add more vacation time
* Listen to the imput provided by those not in the clouds...we see things you don't!
* Use Agile more...keep teams centralized...makes for a faster, more effecient way to do projects

Pros

Interesting product portfolio.
Good pay.
Good benefits.
Work/Life balance is very good.
Smart/Hard-working employees.
Company cares about employee engagement

Cons

Becoming more poitical and beurocratic as company grows.
Communication challenging with many sites and product groups
Re-organizations occur often
Focus on quantity of deliverables as opposed to quality of deliverables.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue listening to employees.

Pros

Overall the company offers good benefit compared to other company and try to make things right after market recession.

Cons

Not growing in US workforce changes the a lot of people's morale.