Blue Nile Reviews

Pros

-Good coworkers
-Paid overtime if you're hourly
-Casual environment
-Decent training process

Cons

-They will string you along for months if you are a temp
-Don't value their employees as much as they should
-Don't listen to scheduling requests
-Very rare to get real feedback on work performance

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees more, and don't string along temp employees for months. You won't retain people if you don't treat them well.

Pros

Smaller company, more opportunities.
New industry, new market and new business model.
It is expanding international business, nice work experience.
Good company culture.

Cons

People from different departments are only focus on their own short-term goal. Employees don't clearly know the common long-term goal or company's competitive strategies.

Advice to Senior Management

More team activities. Let employees know company's short-term and long-term goals. Work at the same page. More cross-department communication. More feedback about work performance.

Pros

Growth Opportunity, Highly visible to Management

Cons

In the Detail, Top heavy

Pros

Employee Discount
Basic benefits (health, 401k, stock options)
Easy commute in Seattle area
Nice co-workers
Bus pass
Gym discount
Medium sized company
Some of the upper management were nice

Cons

Only worried about the bottom dollar
Employees or customers are not their top concern
Focus of the company is profit
Did I mention that the company's focus is only about money
Culture of negativity and immature gossip

Advice to Senior Management

Leadership is definitely lacking in many areas: The founder has to be supported by a more mature leadership because he does lack immaturity. He's a shark in the business arena and the profit the company makes is more relevant to his bank account than to anyone else. A more mature management style would make it a healthier environment. Not a lot of growth because company is so small. The current CEO (Diane) is a much better public representation of what a CEO should be. She is the company's "Gem".

Pros

Good overall business model.
Stable and financially conservative.

Cons

Senior IT Management about a decade behind the times.
Software Engineering team relatively incompetent, especially for Seattle
Company's way overvalued so stock options are basically worthless.

Advice to Senior Management

You need fresh blood at the director level in IT. Find some people who've actually had an IT leadership position before joining Blue Nile. Most of the leaders have never really had another job in the field. You need to hire some real professionals to lead the team if you expect to retain talent.

Pros

They provide training. Casual dress. Overtime available

Cons

Treated a bit like cattle. Hire and fire on a whim.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be so full of yourself.

Pros

The business model is really smart, people are great, the fast pace makes it exciting and I enjoy my job.

Cons

Things happen really fast which makes it difficult to keep up and then other things take much too long.

Advice to Senior Management

Allow employees more autonomy appropriate to their roles so we can keep the pace quick and get things done.

Pros

Small company, so it's easy to become an important individual contributor, at any level. You get a high degree of personal ownership and an ability to make a real difference. High stress, but you get to be proud of real accomplishments.

Cons

Like a dysfunctional family - because it's a start up. The company is so small that cliques of original founders forms that distrusts new hires, even at the exec level, which promotes high turnover, as mentioned in other reviews. Lack of creativity at the top has led to a dramatic increase in upper management hires to try and use the "fishing with dynamite" approach to come up with new ideas.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus on creativity is important, but throwing money at the problem by hiring more upper management is the wrong approach. Rumors persist that employees are underpaid by about 30-50% locally... rumors confirmed to me when I left for a far more higher-paying job in a similar company in the same town.

Pros

If you were looking for a laid-back job where you can "phone it in" then this is a good choice. It is very easy to blend into the scenery.

Cons

No respect for ideas that didnt come from long-term management.
No way to move promising employees ahead in organization.
Complete lack of planning on everything.

Advice to Senior Management

Respect Employees in mid management and below. Just because you founded the company doesn't mean you are always right.

Horrible retention.

Pros

Health benefits are fairly good. Stock options can be useless depending on when you're hired due to peak seasons. Pretty laid back place as a software engineer.

Cons

Management tends to be deceitful. Expected of engineers to work more than 40 hours a week. Project definitions are generally very vague. No documentation for existing systems. Turn over is very high in most departments.

Advice to Senior Management

Employee retention.