Autodesk Reviews

Pros

great benefits, great products, good location

Cons

male-oriented, political, few opportunities in senior positions for women in operations

Pros

overall, easiest to have experiences and step to get in to another jobs. but you have to deal with things inside of work

Cons

minimum wage is to low and can not compare with another place. if you need money and you need real jobs, its not the one

Advice to Senior Management

check back all jobs and try to find way out for people who work over there. don not be selfish

Pros

Strong compensation package.
Generous sabbatical program.

Cons

Autodesk is a highly political organization. Those who get ahead commit tremendous energy internal manipulation and consolidation of personal power - not concerned with customers or their reports. It is a highly competitive environment where there is always a looser. You move up by pushing someone else down. Cooperation and teamwork are mostly foreign concepts in this highly siloed organization.

Many senior managers, directors, and executives got to where they are because of persistence and ruthless dedication to self aggrandizement inside that like minded leadership group - not because of talent, accomplishments, or support of those that report to them. The result is a large pool of talented individual contributors that are mostly not able or allowed to do their best work.

In the last 3 years, during the economic crisis, both layoffs and internal austerity measures where extensive, while - during the same period - additional layers of management structure were added. This has resulted in great frustration, low moral, and an employee / management relationship that could be described as confrontational. Many feel betrayed by those at the helm, and are simply biding time until the job market picks up. Departures have risen in the last year, and I expect them to rise dramatically in the coming months and years.

As mentioned in another review I read, Carl has a narrow focus that seems to randomly shift between groups & projects - often at a very detailed level. The impression is there's no one leading the company as one team. Autodesk feels like a loose confederation of often competing independent companies, all continually jockeying for the lead in an internal power strugle.

Advice to Senior Management

Value cooperation over competition.
Reduce management structure - flatten the organization.
Create conditions for skilled people to do their jobs as they see fit, rather than exert management control over and intervention in individual projects.
Stop reacting and take the lead in product innovation.

Pros

Good perks for this type of job - and very even across levels of employment. Fitness reimbursement, stock options, sabbaticals, etc.

Cons

Ok place, but consistent feeling that one hand has no idea what the other is doing. Very scattered and uninspired leadership around new initiatives.

Advice to Senior Management

listen to key employees. Not everyone expects a manager's salary in order to give sound business advice. Some employees just actually care about doing it right

Pros

People are smart and fun to work with. Genuinely nice people.
Pay is pretty good, comparable with Bay Area levels.
Great work-life balance most times.
Excellent benefits.

Cons

Poor quality of senior management and leadership.
Too many older people. Need more young blood.
Need more trained managers.
Often, lot of planning and talking, but not enough action.

Advice to Senior Management

Recognize and retain talent. Else you will be obsolete quickly. Learn how to create efficiencies in organizations.

Pros

Great people and environment, diversity

Cons

not much room for growth

Advice to Senior Management

promote the right people

Pros

Work culture, friendly atmosphere, helpful

Cons

there are not hiring too many entry -level

Advice to Senior Management

na

Pros

Great company for user centered design. Very interesting projects/products. Dedicated professional users. The company has a very good record of keeping employees for the long term.

Cons

Working with people on distributed virtual teams is very common and leads to longer hours. Waterfall software process is on the way but the transition to agile is slow in some areas.

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership at Autodesk is solid and experienced- the people I work for seem to know what they're doing. Keep the focus on sustainability.

Pros

flexible work time
work from home

Cons

heavy workload
recognition - somehow strict to give senior title, many employees with years of experience don't have senior title
global work space creates political environment and employees get affected by the war among regional offices
annual vacation days - only 2 weeks for any level

Advice to Senior Management

Please consider to place manager and his employee in the same regional office. Remote managers are likely to reward only the people in their office and don't know the job market/compensation information in different country. They don't seem to be well trained to manage employees globaly.

Pros

Autodesk is a leader within many of the markets it services. Its products are typically the standard by which other, competing products are measured.

Cons

Professional development is typically one of the first aspects to suffer from budgetary cuts. Product development is driven by schedule which often results in compromise.

Advice to Senior Management

Trim the product line of those products that are not contributing to the bottom-line and beef-up support for those products that are paying the bills.