Guidewire Reviews in San Mateo, CA

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – The business is doing very well and the company has many satisfied customers. People care about their job and making real contribution to make Guidewire's products the best in the market. Coworkers are exceptionally friendly and willing to help each other.

Cons – In the past two years the company grew in very fast speed, the small company characters have disappeared. The organization is not flat anymore. The management has no training or vision. There is no management culture and principles. On the surface the company has core values but the values are not followed. The middle managements formed a alliance that has all the political posturing that you can see in a big company and the interview process is controlled by that group.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to the employees and review the interview process.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – - Smart and fun folks
- Complex problems to solve
- Customers love us
- Adapting agile practices for enterprise software
- Selling with integrity and product driven
- Flat organizational structure despite consistent growth

Cons – Guidewire focuses on Property & Casualty Insurance core systems which we don't kid ourselves in thinking is the sexiest industry. However, there are real and sophisticated problems that we solve with our solutions and are used everyday by a large and global user base.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work and while the recent changes have been good, the execution is a little rushed (we're bigger than we used to be).

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – Unequivocally, it's the people. Everyone helps. All you have to do is ask.

Cons – In pro services, we travel. The travel is not all that bad for me. It's where you have to go when you work in the insurance industry. Think cold and gray winters in the northeast and the northern mid-west.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – Openness in discussing critical issues. Extremely high level of software engineers. Employees are trusted. Doing the right thing is always the end goal. No petty power politics. Great software. Customers come first. Test first. Performance testing critical. Writing great enterprise software is really, really hard. Guidewire is doing a darn good job of it.

Cons – I have to go over the San Mateo bridge three days a week. Sigh.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep the faith. Keep control of our fate.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – Work with smart and capable people.
Great work/life balance - not expected to work long hours.
Best collaborative environment in Silicon Valley.
Steady growth.
Rational decision making.

Cons – We've grown at a slow and steady pace, with increasing sales; need to make sure that as the company continues to grow that it does not become burdened with bureaucracy and hierarchy. As the company has grown more management levels have been added so the organization is not as flat as it was; this is probably inevitable but it needs to be kept under control.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep doing more of the same. This is a great company and, as we grow, try to keep our culture intact.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – 1) At a previous company - ranked by Fortune Magazine as the #1 place to work in the US - I was stabbed in the back. At Guidewire, my team HAS my back. What a difference.
2) The company values of collegiality, integrity and rationality are referenced in conversation and in decision making.

Cons – I took a pay cut to come here. But it was worth it!

Advice to Senior Management – I appreciated the explicit corporate goals for this Fiscal Year. Please REPORT on our progress toward the goals at quarterly meetings.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – challenging technical work
quality people
focus - a chance to be the world's best at what we do
unglamorous, but meaningful work...try doing without P&C insurance!
dedicated management, passionate about the company

Cons – airline travel - but it wasn't a surprise
It's hard to come up with anything substantive. I'm blessed to love what I do for a living.

Advice to Senior Management – Try not to loose site of the long term, when we eventually go public, and have to show monotonically increasing quarterly results.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – Bias towards distributing responsibility to individuals
Rationally argued opinions are always respected
Good work-life balance
Unusually long planning horizons
Willingness to learn from mistakes
Company is successful, and very likely to be a great place to work into the foreseeable future

Cons – The desire to not grow too quickly and not lower standards comes at a cost -- we are understaffed in some key areas

Advice to Senior Management – Keep to the long term vision. We are on the right track.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – There is enough opporunity to complex technical problems to solve, good support from various teams while working on customer problems, good level of transparency for customer and management communication. Guidewire culture promotes competence with team work. Open with customers on product limitation and new features.

Cons – Company has more focus on technology driven changes than on increasing it's presence, customer is treated good for new features , but not so well on commitments for bugs.

Advice to Senior Management – please relook at middle managment structure and other teams other than dev and professional services. There is lot of contribution from other teams that goes un-noticed

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Guidewire

Pros – I am surrounded by co-workers who are intelligent, competent, trustworthy, and responsible. The way each team works is decided by the team, not pushed down from management.

Cons – At the end of the day we are working to make insurance companies more efficient, which can probably end up saving us all money. More likely though it will just increase the profits for insurance companies. Not exactly saving the world.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend