NetApp Reviews in Raleigh-Durham, NC Area

Pros

Culture of trust and respect; individuals can make a difference, and are expected to. Great folks to work with; people generally want to help out.

Cons

Hyper growth makes for its own challenges.

Pros

* Interesting technology
* full of potential

Cons

* Sweat shop
* Poor or absent management
* Constantly changing priorities
* Full of cliques and bias
* Not honest often full of spin

Pros

High technical standard for most employees
Software focused company
Quality products
Good culture (in RTP - so far)
Weekly Beer Bash in RTP is outstanding

Cons

Cisco wanna-be (what a shame)
Mid-to-Low compensation
Short vacation time (only 12 days)
Small bonuses
Shrinking benefits
Not as progressive as they should/could be
Way too much emphasis on Greatest Place to Work

Advice to Senior Management

NetApp is a really good place to work that has the potential to be a great place to work. Some of the company founders are still around and I have to believe exert a positive influence in making the culture at least feel progressive. Unfortunately, Sr Execs are making the same mistakes many other companies have made. They focus on hiring low salary employees in 3rd world, fill executive positions by hirong outside instead of promoting from within, contain costs by not giving raises and cutting benefits, inequitably share the wealth of the company and, worst of all, think because they do well in Greatest Place to Work surveys falsely believe they're doing a good job creating a great company. What they don't realize is that doing well in those silly surveys is more about hiring lower quality employees with reduced expectations than it is about improving the culture of the company.

NetApp is not a sweatshop though and management, up to this point, is mostly reasonable to very good. They got a few things right. Weekly RTP Beer Bash is a small investment with a massive payback of goodwill (everyone has a blast socializing with colleagues). There is a real Cisco cancer however and it needs to be removed though I don't have high hopes. I know to avoid those areas but sooner or later it will spread to the point of pervasiveness.

Advice to management: Forget Cisco. Stop hiring from there. Look to Google or Amazon or Facebook to model yourself. Be a progressive company. Throw convention out the window, kick MBA's out the door. Truly splurge on your staff level employees then watch innovation skyrocket and productivity improve.

Pros

Good benefits, positive environment, great upper management communication. The corporate culture encourages participation and the communications of successes and things necessary for success are clearly outlined.

Cons

Management tends to be "home grown" and not trained. This leads to ambiguity of method, goals and a lack of clarity of where to go when there are problems. Line employees are encouraged and developed. Managers are left on their own.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should encourage and build up managers more as they do with their line employees. In other areas, they should continue to keep doing what they do.

Pros

The benefits are good, the stock awards are good and the commitment to creating a culture of contribution is very powerful.

Cons

Middle management does not get a lot of encouragement or training. Most middle management is home grown and not trained. Expectations are hard to determine some time and for someone coming up from being an engineer, the transition can be uncomfortable.

Advice to Senior Management

Make more of an effort to treat your managers with the same encouragement that you extend to your engineers. Also provide more management training.

Pros

Workplace/office environment, work with lots of smart people, well designed organizational structure, reasonable work loads, strong senior management, excellent products, excellent sales force, consistent corporate earnings performance, outstanding benefits, excellent work-life balance, plenty of opportunity to move into other positions or for career advancement, all in all a great place to work.

Cons

The operating system software is sort of a mess. There are too many bugs in the software. The release cycles are very long (2 years) in the waterfall model not the agile release model. Some of the managers and staff are incompetent. A great amount of time, money and resources are spent on winning best place to work awards at every location world wide. It's a little too much. Too much politics within the engineering teams.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work.

Pros

NetApp provides interesting challenges daily, this company stretches the abilities of its people and encourage constant growth. In five years, I have never been bored. NetApp provides spot bonuses for excellent work, Friday beer bashes, and phone calls from Board members as recognition of excellence. On top of all of this, the employees are the very best and brightest in the industry. For the past fifteen years, NetApp senior management has been dedicated to fostering a happy culture.

Cons

I have no negative comments about my company.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the culture alive.

Pros

Freedom and flexibility are the two things I love at NetApp and these are the two best reasons why I want to work as an employee at NetApp. It is definitely the best place to work at. I love the beer bashes here and the various other benefits that an employee gets.

Cons

Lack of transparency and there are some manager level cons.

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing

Pros

Good/smart people to work with

Cons

Too much process
Career advancement is very hard

Advice to Senior Management

Change the review process

Pros

Great benefits, Good compensation, Great training

Cons

Management still figuring it out
On the surface touted work/life balance but under the hood feels like a different story
Some roles are not compensated appropriately

Advice to Senior Management

Get to know your employees on a deeper level