National Instruments Reviews

Current Employee – been working at National Instruments full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – - Great atmosphere.
- Work/Life balanced well
- Encouraged to innovate.
- Great benefits
- On-site Doctor's office

Cons – - Salary tends to be low when compared to similar positions on glassdoor
- While we used to do frequent group outings/team building activities, those have gone by the wayside (in my group at least).

Advice to Senior Management – - Pay your employees more!
- Reward them more.
- Add on-site daycare to benefits. Your employees are getting older and starting families.

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

Current Employee – been working at National Instruments full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Benefits, pay, great people to work with.

Cons – The cafeteria is very convenient but not the greatest food.

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

Current Employee – been working at National Instruments full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – There is always challenges that provides many opportunities to learn. Plenty of overtime to allow making extra money to make up for the low pay. The insurance and benefits are good.

Cons – It is difficult to move up or out of manufacturing. Hours are long. Lots of overtime. This is a positive if you like making extra money but there is little time for life outside.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at National Instruments full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – World-bettering products - employees are proud of what we make.
Open culture - it's easy and encouraged to speak with management.
Hire from within - Career opportunities abound for engineers

Cons – Salary - Pay is unashamedly less than peers
Consensus Culture - You can make a decision without 30 approval and no disapprovals. Even the janitor has veto power, it seems.

Advice to Senior Management – Take more risks.

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

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

Pros – Innovative marketing, Freedom to grow, Collaborative environment, Young average employee age

Cons – Sometimes slow to change, Not the most competitive salaries

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at National Instruments as a contractor for more than a year

Pros – There are many reasons I would like to share with you as to why its such a great place to work, but here are a few: The environment here is very professional and at the same time you enjoy yourself while working with in the different teams. The small forest here is a fantastic way to enjoy the outdoors while still working from your laptop. The cafeteria has great breakfast and lunch. There's a gym, basketball court and team bicycle riding. And that's just during lunch. There is always a good game of volleyball going on after work.

Cons – Honestly I never had a reason to feel dissatisfied.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep up the deck parties and the general life training meetings! From home buying to managing your financing, healthy life strategies etc...

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

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

Pros – NI is a very casual and friendly environment. Work hours are flexible, there's absolutely no dress code, people drink beer at work on Fridays, a lot of deck parties, very talented people.

Cons – The work pace is pretty slow, so career growth is pretty slow. Quite strict on following process which translates into long development cycles and a lot of boring tasks.

Advice to Senior Management – The hardware development process could use a refresh.

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

Current Employee – been working at National Instruments full-time for more than a year

Pros – Have the ability to rotate to various teams and departments for exposure to new skills and expertise.

Cons – Average salary compared to other companies in the industry.

Advice to Senior Management – Continue challenging employees and creating new opportunities for career growth.

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

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

Pros – Excellent work environment, very smart people to work with
Relaxed environment, flexible hours

Cons – Too much middle management
No salary raises, or very small ones

Advice to Senior Management – Pay people what they deserve, NOT the minimum they would take.....even when they're happy with their job

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – People who will like working here:

- New or nearly-new grads. The job training is top-notch, I'll give them that much. And if you avoid getting pigeon-holed into a narrow role (like analog-only, software-only, whatever), they'll make you very valuable for your next employer.

- People who value security more than opportunity. You have to mess up really bad to get fired here, and they've never had a layoff in their history. So as long as you can suck in your pride and just play along with the approved "NI way" you'll do fine for as long as you want. Just don't expect to change the world there.

- People coming from big, beaureacratic companies with lots of rules. They'll appreciate the safe, laid-back culture and the management transparency.

- People coming from unstable, pressure-cooker small companies. They'll appreciate the slower pace and predictable paycheck.

Cons – - It really is a boring industry. Sure, NI can help other companies build exciting things with their equipment, but when it comes down to it, NI is basically just making generic programmable test equipment and the software to go with it. They'll do their best to make it seem interesting, but it's kinda hard for me to get excited by faster sampling rates and incremental software features and whatnot.

- The "smart" work has been done already, so it's nearly impossible to make a name for yourself with any new ideas there.

- The 14 straight "top 100 places to work" years have led the long-time employees to a "we know best" mentality. So if you're coming in with previous experience, don't expect them to trust you to do things your own way regardless of how much success you had before. They're not necessarily micro-managing you, but someone is keeping an eye on your work at all times to make sure you're doing it the approved NI way.

- Benefits are good, but overrated. NI's health insurance plan saved me about $1000/yr vs my other 2 employers, but only contributed 3% to 401k vs 6% elsewhere. And the bonus payout is based on 40% revenue growth, which is a little unreasonable in this industry going forward.

Advice to Senior Management – Don't hire people with too much ambition or previous success - they won't like being coddled like everyone else there.