Netflix Employee Review

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

Pros – Smart co-workers with the basics of a great corporate culture.
Lack or management direction means lots of job flexibility (back-handed pro?).
Good product that has potential.

Cons – Lacking a future strategic vision from the exec team.
Not an innovation culture for engineers, more of a tinkering culture with mindless obsession to A/B testing.
Didn't learn from the Qwikster debacle and hasn't returned to a focus on customers - they're just numbers on a chart to management.

Advice to Senior Management – Realize Netflix needs to be more than just a content middle-man to succeed long term.

I had a great ride at Netflix up to the point where Reed torpedoed the company with the Qwikster idiocy. Despite the obsession with testing user experience, almost nothing was done to test consumer reaction to the Qwikster plan before it was announced (haphazardly at that).

Put customers first again and deliver the BEST combined streaming and DVD experience possible. Despite the religious conviction to kill the DVD business, wait on doing this until the rest of the population is ready for it. Forcing the issue is hurting Netflix in the short term, and this damage is opening an opportunity for competition.

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