DivX Reviews

Pros

great place to work full time

Cons

not so great place to work

Advice to Senior Management

no advice at this time

Pros

Laid back environment, casual, flexible hours, great location. A small, startup-type feel with decent opportunities for younger people to get experience.

Cons

Even with the casualness, there's some not so nice people who work there. Additionally, all the red tape that's necessary to get the simplest tasks done is just ridiculous!

Advice to Senior Management

The company has so much potential and could be something amazingly bigger if it had the balls to actually invest in their brand and spend some cash to promote it to the world.

Pros

When I started DivX was still in startup mode and I found the atmosphere exciting as well as a strong software challenge. There are / were talented people there and before the IPO lots of us really thought we were on the way to building a great company with real value to consumers.

Cons

When I left, it was a boring cynical place with lots of money rolling out to the executives and very little sense of what rank + file did or should do. Way too many projects killed in the final hour. In fact, I could've taken the last year off and in terms of the work would've made no difference to the team productivity b/c all we did was build, test, and delete projects. Lots of churn at the mid-management level just left too much spaghetti as far as vision and execution of projects. The executives are now mostly former lawyers + mba's so the competency seems quite low up top.

Advice to Senior Management

Cash out and let someone with a real drive to succeed step in. Go jump with the golden parachute and give the ring to some internet savvy leaders who can make decisions, be bold, and make some moves.

Pros

Lots of exposure with senior management. Work closely with many different areas of the company to execute projects. Lots of responsibility, and every day is different.

Cons

Not very much vision or direction. Tough to justify innovation with such a fluid business model, so often times it takes a great deal of effort to get any new project rolling even if you have ROI justification.

Advice to Senior Management

It's OK to be wrong. Let's just start working in a direction - we can always change course once the ball is rolling but it's much harder to get things going from a standstill.

Pros

Cool flexible place to work with a lot of very smart people. I'm sure a little bit of the old DivX is reminiscent, but it's seemed to have devolved into what is the competition doing, let's do that too. It has a nice open work environment.

Cons

It used to be an open and transparent place wtih lots of enthusiasm, but I think the mgmt now is too concerned with counting their money and playing it safe. They hire really talented people and don't let them shine. The place is ugly with gossip and politics and the "social club" promotions don't put the best people in the best positions. There is also a lack of leadership and decision making on projects. Plus, often work would get farmed out while senkior and competent people are stuck doing low level catch up work on the infamous DivX "fire drills". Almost all of the original visionaries are long gone.

Advice to Senior Management

Start recognizing talent. You're not Sony so start moving quickly like a small nimble company. Bring back transparency. Give people some authority to make calls on projects and lose the group decision making that generally leads to people casting doubts instead of building products. Maybe senior mgmt needs a shakeup. Move in a spirited direction that says DivX and let people shine instead of becoming generic copycat company x with a $3 stock share.

Pros

The people at DivX are great to work with. Most of them are people you would enjoy spending time with outside of work. They have a cultural interview mixed in with the technical interview where they essentially assess how well you would fit in with the rest of the employees. This cultural interview tends to assure that the people that get hired are a good fit and will get along with everyone else. It is a fun environment to work in.

Cons

The management only manages, they do not lead well -- there is not a strong awareness among the "general population" of where the company is going or how it's getting there. Salaries tend to be below industry averages.

Advice to Senior Management

Lead more.

Pros

The weather is great. Good people and relaxed atmosphere. If you have a good rapport with your group, you can be free to execute within your domain.

Employees tend to be very active. Volleyball, surfing all sorts of other activities. Trade shows can be very rowdy and spirited if you get to go.

Cons

DivX once was an exceptionally open office. A couple of years ago openness began being shut down. The information vacuum turned to gossip.

The inability of the new generation to be frank and honest with employees created an acidic environment. If you can avoid this, it is as good a place to be as any, but in contrast to what it once was, DivX can be a bit sad.

Advice to Senior Management

Sell it off and move on.

Pros

Fantastic work environment, cool coworkers, easy-going atmosphere. Really, the folks are friendly, energetic, and interesting. Good benefits. DivX tries to recapture the feel of a 90s Silicon Valley startup with considerable success. There are the requisite foosball and ping-pong tables and Nerf gun battles. Compensation was good, and medical and dental were great.

Cons

Wandering project scope, ill-defined goals, a mystifying org chart. It was hard to figure out who was in charge of what--and well-nigh impossible to ascertain who was the "final word" on any particular aspect of a project. That being said, there was far more upside to working at DivX than downside.

Advice to Senior Management

Clarify the org chart, clarify the titles, cut-down on the amount of Product Managers with seemingly overlapping duties.

Pros

It's a fun atmosphere and very social if you are of the right mindset. Lot's of cool people and talent...

Cons

Watch your back...I didn't trust any of the management at all after seeing my boss' team cut without her knowing beforehand. Very closed, "open environment"... If you are looking to complete a project to add to your portfolio...think again...my projects changed scope every 3 weeks. The strategic direction changes everytime the wind blows.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire new management that cares more about the company's success than their cushy compensation packages... Layoffs in 2008 were taking place while senior management was cashing in on millions of $$ in stock...even at very low strike prices....Something very fishy is happening here...

Pros

You get a chance to work with a lot of cool, talented people.

Cons

All the cool, talented people are getting laid off/fired/quitting.

Advice to Senior Management

DivX had so much energy and drive but the management seems to have succeeded in beating that out of the company almost completely.