Hewlett-Packard Reviews in Sacramento, CA Area

Pros

1.) The people I work with are generous, gracious, caring, intelligent and professional. They help create a work environment where it is OK to say "I don't know."
2.) The engineering challenges. In the 3+ years working here, I have had to learn something new every week in order to perform my job. There are times where the work is monotonous but for the most part, I have been handed different pieces (as well as different enough pieces) to develop my knowledge and make me a better engineer as well as a more marketable engineer.
3.) The group I work with, has project based work. My typical work week is 40 hours although with proper planning, a lot of times it is less than 40 hours. If I am behind on my deliverables I may have to work late or on a weekend, but it has not been common for my manager to over extend my responsibilites into too many projects/programs .

Cons

The current moral of the company is not very high. We did have a manditory pay cut across the company that we will never see returned. Raises are few and far between. Monetary recognition of hard work or innovating work is pretty much non-existent now (although there used to be a program that rewarded hard work and innovation). Small perks, like team lunches or team outings no longer exists. Work is work, not necessarily a extremely fun work environment.

Advice to Senior Management

There is a single word that upper management needs to learn; retention. If you cannot retain your current work force, there will be a lot of combined knowledge lost as the economy is recovering and the job market improves. As that combined knowledge is lost, the time for the current workforce to gain that knowledge back will cut into development time of your next product which may result in features that are not well developed causing poor quality issues or bugs that effect the customer negatively.

Pros

I like the flexible hours, and multiple areas for possible career advancement. Additionally, there's strength in numbers: I know that entire software divisions will not be cut from the company, and that positions will be gradually phased out (rather than losing funding -> drastic cuts).

Cons

The typical downsides of a large company: Your management knows what you need/want but is powerless to get it, there is a large amount of paperwork for innovation, and pay is moderate.

Advice to Senior Management

N/A

Pros

Lot of exciting stuff going on from a technology perspective and the opportunity is immense.
Cross polination and learning possible
Multiple options to move around if you get tired of a job

Cons

Penny pinching culture that Mark Hurd has established makes life very painful. Sometimes you have to go through your quarterly budget even if you want to buy an extra battery for your laptop!!
Restrictions around travel etc can also be painful if you are in marketing.
If you want any IT support, forget it - HP teaches IT to the world, but HP's own IT support is pathetic to put it mildly - again thanks to Randy Mott and Mark Hurd for all their cost cutting!

Advice to Senior Management

Stop trying to centralize everything because after sometime the efficiencies cost more in productivity than they save.
Keep the momentum around the Converged infrastructure.

Pros

Although we did lose one week of paid time off in favor of "unlimited" sick leave I do still get 4 weeks off per year after 10+ years at the company. The people that work here are highly skilled and for the most part great to work with. It's a very professional place to work, which is good for women particularly.

Cons

Every year more work gets moved to India, Costa Rica, Singapore, Brazil, and other countries. It is harder and harder to get high quality products released with all the time differences and low-bandwidth communication. It used to be enjoyable working with colleagues to create products, but now it is really a drag.

Advice to Senior Management

Maximizing profit to the extreme at the expense of employee satisfaction will likely eventually backfire.

Pros

Work with smart people
Cultural diversity
Work on the big problems

Cons

Mgmt take PC market as typical/desirable development model
Strong focus on incremental development
For about 10 years, mgmt belief that innovation begins in the marketing dept (or upper mgmt)
Strong preference for new hires to be in "low cost geographies"

Advice to Senior Management

Stop the centralization--it's slowing everyone down
Explicitly allow at large percentage (e.g., 40%) of R&D budget to be allocated by low-mid level engineering management--new products, feature, productivity will result.

Pros

At the lower levels there are still some people left who embody the HP way. People are generally respectful and kind... The sort of people that you want to watch your house.

Cons

Indiscriminate layoffs are the norm (Workforce Reductions).
A career at hp is no longer a viable for most folks, particularly if you want to get paid a competitive salary.

Advice to Senior Management

We need a better balance between short term profit, and long term growth. Projects that focus on removing technical debt are repeatedly canceled in favor of short term gains. Eventually we won't be able to keep up with our competitors.... then what happens? We get WFR'd that's what. It doesn't make for a successful career or engaging work environment.

Additionally, the whole WRF process has taught us to look out for ourselves and leave poorly performing organizations before they cut their way to profits. Thinking about that company's success before our own is a path to the street.

Pros

Good work life balance, good people to work with

Cons

no real opportunity to grow

Advice to Senior Management

help grow motivated employee in leadership positions

Pros

There are many good co-workers, both in terms of knowledge and personality. Teamwork and collaboration are the norm. A fairly high percentage of managers were technical earlier in their careers. At the Roseville site, the attire is very casual, even managers wear shorts in the summer. In general management tries to keep employees informed of what's going on and what the going forward strategy is (once they figure it out)

Cons

Extreme cost cutting over the past few years has taken its toll. In the most IT organizations there is a downsizing quota that needs to be met each year. This has resulted in the remaining workers being stretched to the limit and beyond. There are lots of emails with late night time stamps. In my group the work days have crept from 8-9 hrs/day to 10-12 hrs/day and now 11-14 hrs/day. And while the work has been going up, compensation has been going down. Several years ago the pension plan was eliminated. Then a couple of years ago pager pay was eliminated for folks on 24/7 coverage. Pay raises are a thing of the past, so due to inflation it's guaranteed that as the years go bye your effective salary will decrease. Instead, if the company did well and you got a really good review you might get a bonus for that year. Then to top it off, the company matching on the 401k was eliminated and there was a permanent 5% pay cut.

Advice to Senior Management

Remember that your employees are your greatest resource and act like it. Sure, right now, everybody is gritting their teeth and bearing it, but many have been making plans to jump ship when the economy gets better.

Pros

Management at HP works very good with employees to provide a good work/life balance. Fair benefits package including tuition reimbursement. Engineers work very hard and are dedicated towards their work.

Cons

The communication gap between management and the engineers is increasing. There is a lot of job insecurity within the engineering workforce. A lot of times just doing a good job is not enough to keep your position.

Advice to Senior Management

Management needs to begin having honest and authentic discussions with the employee workforce. They should also do more to show appreciation for employees.

Pros

People are great (at least for now)
Interesting projects
Flexable

Cons

low pay and benifits.
no raises.
no promotions.
engineering is not valued.

Advice to Senior Management

The right thing to do is not always driven by economics.