LANDesk Reviews

Current Employee – been working at LANDesk full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – LANDesk has a great atmosphere with a great work/life balance.
LANDesk pays pretty well.
The product is an IT product, and the company is growing. So even if your field isn't IT, you can work in the IT field by working here. If your field is in IT, then you get double the IT experience.
The company encourages learning and has a book of the quarter for the developers so they continue to learn and keep up their knowledge.
Located right off the freeway.
Located near the Jordan River which has a nice park and walking/biking path along it.

Cons – It was purchased by Avocent, who was purchased by Emerson, who sold LANDesk off to a Private Equity company who plans to improve an flip LANDesk so another sale could occur anytime.
The product has a lot of old baggage as it started in the early 90's.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't pull developers off your primary products for anything. If you have an idea, treat it like a startup, invest extra money in separate dev teams to build the idea without slowing down development on your current products.

Integrate with other IT software products.

90% Health Insurance is good, but bring it back to 100%.

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

Former Employee – worked at LANDesk full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – LANDesk has some really great people as individual contributors and in some of the first line leadership roles. They have built solid products for many years, and the strength of the engineering and support teams is first rate. There is a good mix of old-timers (some approaching 20 years) and newer people, the blend of which could be a great model for long term success. I have seen so many of them make great personal sacrifices for the 9+ years I was there.

Cons – Most of the executive and director level people do not seem interested in bringing to bear all the greatness of the people working there. It is a heavy, top-down management model, and over the numerous rounds of selling the company it felt like the top management became even more distant.
The other challenge is that they seem to be chasing dollars instead of building a compelling vision and strategy, then saying no to most things so that they can really do a world-class job on the things that they decide they really want to be best at.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to more people in the organization than same old few.
Bring problems rather than solutions. You have an incredible team of problem solvers, untie their hands.
Check out the latest Stephen Denning book on Radical Management. Taking it to heart could really revolutionize LANDesk. Good to Great is a book that I saw some of the executives reading but it does not seem like the main principles were comprehended or embraced.
One last thought; Building a High Performing Culture is not a value, rather it is a result of a great culture and a dedicated focus to a compelling vision. The focus by executives on this "value" came across as self-serving and was a negative detractor for me and many I worked with.

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

Current Employee – been working at LANDesk full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Secure, growing, stable, family friendly, work-life balance, fun, innovative

Cons – Main product is late in lifecycle, declining revenue, need to invest more, but hard to do with PE ownership. They are EBITDA driven.

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

Former Employee – worked at LANDesk full-time for more than a year

Pros – Passion for the product, great customer base, many opportunities to innovate

Cons – The company has had to many ownership changes

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

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

Pros – the people (there are a lot of intelligent and fun people working here) benefits are average, salaries are above average for the Salt Lake City region, HR is really busting their butt to make this an enjoyable place to work (Lagoon Family Day, Halloween Parties, Company movies, product launch activities, etc). They have been remodeling a few of the floors in the Salt Lake office, but some other areas are quite lousy. The UK Office recently moved into a nice facility, but was much further for most of the employees (did not make too many people happy in that office).

Cons – - Constant Change in the Roadmap
- Executives have their fingers in too much
- Too many products, the executives won't kill anything "we can't kill that because of this customer"
- Too reactive and sales focused, rather than being market focused
- The executives are focused on one thing EBITDA, which is fine but eventually it will kill the company

Advice to Senior Management – - Stop being so reactive
- Let your directors and managers make decisions, you might be surprised, they might actually make you look good
- Stop micro managing your teams, and let them excel, you are paying them nice salaries why don't you let them show you how great they are
- Implement a long-term strategy and stick with it, don't just acquire companies simply because our features in that specific area are weaker than "some" of your competitors
- Be GREAT at something, today, LANDesk is average at best and customers know it
- Stop worrying about Microsoft and focus on making your company better, by trying to be like Microsoft you will never win
- The majority of employees are not happy at LANDesk, you surveyed them and the results clearly indicated this, stop trying to candy coat everything and fix the problems (stop worrying about the millions you will make if you sell company, most of these people will still be here when your gone living off your next egg)

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

Current Employee – been working at LANDesk full-time for less than a year

Pros – This organization takes it's time evaluating potential employees to find the best fit. It shows in the quality of the tech support and development of the product.

Cons – The application to interview to job offer process can be a long process even though it helps get the best employees.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to show appreciation for hard work. So far that's already working so keep it up. This company is a secure model of great employment and longevity as it strives to acknowledge progress and good work.

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

Former Employee – worked at LANDesk

Pros – They make it fun to work at LANDesk. The pay and benefits are very good.

Cons – There was downsizing during the tough economy.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the good work on focusing on the employees.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at LANDesk

Pros – Nice, easy going atmosphere.
Competitive, or better pay than average
Pretty good benefits package
Overall, LANDesk is a great place to work. It was better years ago, when we were smaller, but with growth comes more management and red tape, but still not terrible.

Cons – One of the biggest issues with LANDesk is that there seems to be a lot of dead weight. There are many people that should probably be sent packing to increase the overall health of the company. These people range from poor performers to people who have just given up and do just "enough" to get by. There is plenty of great talent at LANDesk. It sucks to see superstars momentum slowed by those who can't keep up.

Advice to Senior Management – I'm not 100% convinced that the leadership at LANDesk is making the right decisions for the company. I will still do my best to try to accomplish the vision they have communicated, I just hope it pays off in the end.

Current Employee – been working at LANDesk

Pros – There are a number of very talented people working at landesk. Most of them are very helpful when needed. The flexible work schedule is nice. The product has potential to be great.

Cons – The code base is legacy at best. Management is too concerned about feature X and Y, so code maintenance and refactoring rarely take place. The engineering team is structured in silos. The teams rarely work together towards a common goal. There is little consistency with technologies leveraged across teams. Engineering management has continued down the path of mismanaging the work, many teams are overloaded with work while other teams are sitting idle because management has not been able to prioritize work. There have been a number of lay offs recently that has mainly affected the workers, not the multiple levels of management.

Advice to Senior Management – Take a good hard look at the management staff. The next RIF should be focused on them. Most of them have no business in management and were only promoted because they were buds with the management team. The new processes that they have been putting in place have been implemented wrong from day one. The first chapter in the book that they have been passing out lists a number of things that should be avoided. This list is a checklist for what has been implemented incorrectly at landesk. You sell software and you need to retain your talented engineers to be successful. If things continue as they are you will see your 10-15 year veteran engineers flocking to other companies (especially now that the positions are becoming available).

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at LANDesk

Pros – Compensation is ok, products are good. Products are half-baked sometimes. Finance lives in fantasy world.

Cons – Management promotes people based on their own personal friendship. If they have no friends to promote, then it´s better. Religion plays a part of it sometimes.

Advice to Senior Management – Career path for employees?
Respect: you have smart people working for you, start listening.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend