Isilon, A Division of EMC Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Isilon, A Division of EMC full-time for less than a year

Pros – Good Starting Salary for someone with little experience. Opportunities to gain experience and progress within the company.

Cons – I have not found any cons thus far.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Isilon, A Division of EMC full-time for more than a year

Pros – culture, people, work/life balance, projects

Cons – can get away with not doing much if you choose to

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Isilon, A Division of EMC full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Hello, long time listener, first time caller...

Having worked at Isilon for quite a few years and seeing the transition from a small company to one acquired by a much larger one, I have to say that they've evolved quite nicely. Isilon has always had done a great job of identifying talent and promoting it, as well as recognizing when there isn't a cultural or skill fit and weeding those people out. With the acquisition by EMC, the opportunities abound, whether within an existing group or moving to another. They've also done a good job of retaining the independent culture (on-site barista! game room with foosball, ping-pong & xbox! kegs+backup kegs! frequent mid-afternoon movie openings!). Isilon is a very self-aware organization and have the ability to assess themselves critically, which is no small feat, for companies and individuals. The executive management is also good about listening and responding to individual contributors and being transparent and open with the rest of the organization. They are also very good about promoting from within.

I'd also like to mention that I'm a female and I had a very positive experience at Isilon and didn't feel at all threatened, demeaned and demoralized. As with any of these reviews, I would advise taking them as additional data points (as well as with a grain of salt).

Cons – -- Salaries aren't as competitive as they should be, especially now that they're no longer have stock options.
-- Not sure this is really a con, but working for a big company (EMC) isn't going to be everyone's cup of tea. Odds are, though you might not even notice it depending on where you're coming from. I would advise taking the opportunity to interview if you get the chance to get a true sense of whether Isilon is a "big company" culture (I didn't find it so) and make your own assessment.

Advice to Senior Management – The key to Isilon's success has always been the people and the culture. Work hard to retain it - people come to Isilon because everyone is passionate, smart and honest; they stay because management recognizes, promotes and encourages that attitude.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Isilon, A Division of EMC full-time for less than a year

Pros – Excellent benefits
Competitive Salary
Challenging work
Good work-life balance
Excellent work facility with whole walls of whiteboard

Cons – I can't think of any cons.
I guess the Seattle traffic could be considered a con.
The management has just changed and the company has a new CEO and CTO, but the culture of excellence, innovation, and simplicity remains very strong. A great place to mix with the best, learn, and be leading edge in the hot area of NAS scalable data storage.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Isilon, A Division of EMC as an intern for less than a year

Pros – It still feels like startup
the company is pretty small, people know each other
managers are typically nice

Cons – salary and perks are not the best
boring work day
there is no signal in the building

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at Isilon, A Division of EMC full-time

Pros – Excellent benefits
Good location
Lots of free food
Some truly great colleagues - smart and fun

Cons – This is not a safe place for women -- the only areas where women can advance here are hr and support roles. Corporate events include photo ops with skimpily clad cheerleaders. Women, no matter what their job titles, are expected to coordinate meetings and do administrative work. They're assumed to be non-technical. Women who seek to increase technical involvement are chastised for it.

Advice to Senior Management – Take a sincere assessment of your treatment of women in your organization.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Isilon, A Division of EMC full-time for more than a year

Pros – Isilon delivers unique (next-generation) storage technology.

Cons – Still figuring out where Isilon fit within EMC product line.

Advice to Senior Management – Clear communication please.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Isilon, A Division of EMC full-time for more than a year

Pros – Great salaries
Great technology
Motivated tech team
Seasoned sales reps
Nice office
Hard and fast paced workers who want to win

Cons – Political
Fear of the unkown ( aquistion creating a shark tank like work environment)
Executive team removed and lacks ability to provide senior level direction to lower employees. Really were was the management team?
Too many people suceeding by not taking responsiblity for there own actions and mitigating there actions or failures by throwing people under the bus.
Acceptance of new employees from other company cultures is not good.
Upper management could use some diversity. Company needs diversity in sales and other customer facing areas.

Advice to Senior Management – This is a great company built by very passionate people. It is not ok to allow management teams to fight and have turf wars and then allow lower level employees to get caught in the middle. Allow your employee's to grow and if they make a mistake please stop the internal dog fights and gang wars. Take responsiblity and work to bring your groups together as a team.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Isilon, A Division of EMC as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Now I'm only an intern for a short amount of time @ Isilon so I can't claim to know too much, but the following are a few of the awesomeness I have seen:
- Isilon have grown to be a billion dollar company in a very short time and is quickly become a major player in cluster computing.
- Isilon engineering crew is really talented.
- Promotions are frequently given. I have seen 6 promotions announcement e-mail during the first 2 months of my internship.
- Comfortable workplace with lots of fun people and a motto of play hard-work hard.

Cons – Some complaints about minor annoyance when joining with EMC and integrating into a larger corporate settings. Otherwise I haven't had enough time here year to find out.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Isilon, A Division of EMC full-time

Pros – Really great talent and an interesting technology

Cons – Upper Management in constant turmoil and strife and are intensely nepotic. Among some, a culture of disrespect for subordinates. Also as a result, there's sometimes a certain degree of conformity among mid to lower management levels as they fall in line to avoid getting on the bad side of anyone with power.
Product not always terribly reliable.

Advice to Senior Management – Maybe EMC will improve the situation with upper management...

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