Netflix Reviews

Pros

Salaries are at or above the market rate.
Good stock options for salaried employees.
The ability to work remotely, from home.

Cons

Working around the clock, phone calls during vacation.
Very high attrition rates
Constant fear of being let go
Always switching directions while running full speed ahead.

Advice to Senior Management

Quit being elitists. Your company is a revolving door and you continue to lose brilliant people because you don't treat them like human beings.

At the rate in which Netflix hires & fires, I'm amazed that they are sill able to find people to interview!

Pros

The pay you well, they have a great health care plan, and they will give you full time status and paid training.

Cons

Zero time to be human, the constant computer monitoring puts you on edge since you have only 5 minutes to explain to an 80yr old how to install firefox in order to watch a video on their mac computer. This job tells you to be super human and empathetic, yet their employees want to shoot themselves since the place is run like a prison camp. Trying to go to the bathroom will result in your averages going down on the computer monitoring system and if your average falls below 5 minutes per call per shift you are FIRED, ZERO TOLERANCE!

Advice to Senior Management

You fold at management do realize that your training continuously year round results in a $14,000 dollar expense a week, with only a 35% stay rate after 6 months. This program you have costs you a fortune annually and is HIGHLY INEFFICIENT, something you profess to be striving for.

Do yourselves a favor, humanize the job, give people an incentive besides the 14 dollar an hour pay for zero life and boot camp like tactics. You pay so much for people just to sit through a training session that you could have given current employees a real reason to feel appreciated besides the cheap Netflix swag you peddle.

Seriously, make the environment a more "happy place" and save serious money and improve employee moral significantly.

I like the way Mr. Hastings runs things, but he is never actually seen at the Hislboro facility and he is wasting A LOT of money annually with his ridiculous and wasteful training and selection staff.. Seriously, they are ripping you and the potential employees off big time! Also, they like to hand their friends the codes that you give out to the employees to their friends resulting in a month of free 8 movie rentals. You are being robbed sir!

Pros

Higher than industry average salary.

Cons

Read other reviews of former employees. Out of all people that I worked with at the time more than 80% were kicked out. Most of them are bright engineers.

My advice - if you are offered a position in Netflix fight for the highest salary possible. In any case expect to be fired soon. Maybe after a year, maybe sooner, maybe later.

Advice to Senior Management

You don't need to worry. Everything is well. Your stock grows like crazy until you are out of talent and noone wants to work for you anymore.

Pros

Free Netflix subscription, good compensation for what you are doing, just sitting and talking really. They also allow you to use your own judgement when compensating customers for problems.

Cons

I was ahead of the curve for a new hire, things were going well. I got sick a couple of times and then a week after my last absence, they fired me at the start of my work week. I just wish they would have said something like, you can't miss one more day or we will have to let you go, something along those lines.

Advice to Senior Management

If you have written-in-stone guidelines such as an attendance policy, those guidelines should be something shared with the people that they are being enforced on. Because how are you supposed to obey a law, if you honestly don't know it exists,

Pros

So far I am incredibly impressed with Netflix. This is by far the highest concentration of smart people I have ever seen at one company and I have worked in Silicon Valley for over 20 years at large and small companies. In addition, not only are they smart but also very helpful and ego free. I read the culture slide deck before I started but wondered if they actually "walked the walk". I've found the answer to that question to be "absolutely".

If you are not a really smart, driven person who can operate completely independently and with little direction from management, then you will not be happy or successful at Netflix. There is no hand holding, and expectations are high. But if you are the kind of person that craves lots of freedom and responsibility than you will love it.

In the period of time I've been here, I have personally seen several people get promoted from engineers to managers and from managers to directors. There is a lot of career growth as the company is growing like gangbusters right now and if you are great you will love it and thrive.

Cons

If you are looking for safety and worried that you won't get another job somewhere else, Netflix is not the place for you. Basically, Netflix operates like a Startup company. There is no hand holding, you have to make lots of important decisions on your own, you have to be proactive about seeking out help and information, and the culture is fast paced and filled with lots of people who would be the smartest guys in the room at other companies. At Netflix the whole room is filled with those guys. If that intimidates you or scares you, thats a sign its not a good fit for you. If that lights you up and excites you, then you will love working at Netflix.

Advice to Senior Management

Its going to be a challenge to preserve the unique culture as the company grows. Please keep focusing on freedom and responsibility and make sure new managers totally get that aspect of the culture. That is what attracted me to Netflix and I want to see it continue as we grow.

Pros

* "Freedom and Responsibility Culture" = Lots of individual control (Read Reed's slide deck)
* If you're part of a well-run team, you'll love it
- Excellent compensation
- Unique stock option program with personal choice for $$$ allocated
- Fast-paced environment with lots of challenges
- It's the largest streaming movie service in the world and it's just getting better
- Extremely open with corporate information sharing (no internal culture of secrecy like Apple)
- Incredible execution over the last couple years - the methods can be controversial, but you can't argue with the quarterly/annual results

Cons

* "High Performance Culture" = You can hang yourself easily and get canned (Read Reed's slide deck)
* If you join a mis-managed group, you'll be posting a negative review on here soon. :-)
- Average benefits programs
- Inexperienced managers can mis-apply the "high performance culture" philosophy and lead to the "culture of fear" some people have complained about in certain organizations
- Double-standard for performance: VP/C-level staff appear immune from "high performance culture". Reed rocks, but some of the others are average/good, not exceptional.

Advice to Senior Management

In almost two years at Netflix: Some people LOVE working at Netflix, some cautiously tolerate it. Too much of this is dependent on whether they're working for a competent manger that is assumed to properly apply the "high performance culture" philosophy.

The desire to streamline HR by getting rid of almost all policies and procedures means no "professional development" for your management teams. There needs to be a level of education for new managers (hired and promoted. Don't assume everyone "get's it" in order to make sure the "high performance culture" is properly applied. Done right, people will know what's expected of them, get regular feedback from their managers, and KNOW if they're on the short list for being let go as business needs change. They can react to this and either adapt or anticipate why they're getting a severance package. For most employees, Netflix is a short-term roller-coaster ride with options to ride again for those who enjoy it. When someone exits the ride, you want them leaving with a smile and the civil handshake, not a brick to the head and a just a check to cushion the pain.

I've been lucky to work for a manger who's awesome, and I've been having a great time. It's painful to see the flip side where co-workers are not always enjoying the same perspective when the company is doing so well as a whole.

Pros

Great Pay
Free food
Free Netflix subscription
Laid back dress attire

Cons

Micro Management
At will employer
Use you then abuse you
Need to suck up to keep your job

Advice to Senior Management

If one employee doesn't get the training needed by their manager - maybe you should find someone else to assist that person. Not crap on them and boot them out the door.

Pros

-Good salary
-flexible hour
-ability to work from home
-some smart people
-free drinks and snacks
-some helpful onsite seminars
-comfortable working environment.
-excellent NOC support.

Cons

-constant fear of unreasonable dismissal
-poor location for commuters
-It was beginning to grow so fast that it's hiring standards were slipping
-open and honest feedback is only acceptable when it is in agreement with management's

Advice to Senior Management

Stop letting go of excellent, hard working, productive people for esoteric reasons.

Pros

Amazingly smart people. Business looks easy but is complicated--hard problems to solve which is why I am here. I get to do work that affects our customers, directly...way cool that my role has that much impact.

Cons

Not everyone wants the culture to work--and that is disappointing.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep the course with the business and the culture.

Pros

hands down pay is great 14.00 plus health care benefits (800 extra a month if you opt out of insurance) puts my pay above 2500 a month!

10 hour shifts (can be a con too) three day weekends are nice but you will need it

Classified as a hostile work environment by the state of Oregon so you get unemployment for virtually anything you may get fired for (even if you deserve to be fired). Make sure you get hired by netflix first before taking advantage of this sweet pro. It does not work if you are still on your trial period with them through a hiring agency.

Great job to go into to find a real career especially as a college graduate in this economy

Cons

Customers have no lives so they call up about stupid things and feel they deserve the world for $9.99

Dealing with stupid people all day long is very rough.

Pay is great but think about it, why do they pay so well? If it was a great place to work they would not need to pay well, would they ;-)

constantly acting like you care takes its toll at about 4 months in (like I said start looking for another job on your three day weekend no matter what you think at the start of this job, you will thank me later for that nugget of info ;-)

You will not get time off even though they don't give you paid time off

People are always getting axed around you so don't depend on the job.

Advice to Senior Management

Let people take time off! By not your allowing people time off your making them get burnt out.