Netflix Reviews

Pros

Lots of growth opportunities the job is fun and challenging and helping people creates a really rewarding feeling at th end of the day. The pay is good as well.

Cons

It can be a stressful environment if the calls are difficult. The stats of calls are recorded and not always under your control which can be alarming.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep a consistent picture of how the job should be done and set clear expectations for employees. Follow up when employees are not meeting these expectations.

Pros

Free lunch, good salary, nice commute

Cons

Poor performance of colleagues, very poor management, very poor planning

Advice to Senior Management

80% of your employees hurt you, the other 20% are mistreated. Fix this.

Pros

-All previously noted perks are accurate
-Incentives Galore
-Excellent Pay when you consider how much the majority of the world gets paid to answer phones

Cons

- agree with previous posts about how easy people are let go
- Performance/Mobility determined or based on numbers, not performance

Advice to Senior Management

Your head is in the right place using numerical values to gather data about performance, but one must consider the need to evaluate other aspects of employee's performance besides those which can be measured numerically. The most successful professionals have such qualities, and it's a shame to witness great employees let go from such a great company.

Pros

Great product
Good co-workers
Transition from DVD to Digital is very interesting

Cons

Began to feel like a revolving door after working there for a couple years. Turnover is very, very high.

Advice to Senior Management

It is hard to argue with Netflix's success as a company.

Pros

OUTRAGEOUS pay!!! [14 bucks an hour]
No experience needed! Ever worked at safeway, or mcdonalds? [no need beyond that]
Free food! [ramen, easy mac, oatmeal, pete's coffee and tons of tea!]
Feedback is excellent!
Medical and Dental kicks ASS!
8 DVD's out a time plan for FREE!!!
Did I mention FREE food, FREE movies, FREE coffee and the highest pay possible for not having a degree!

Cons

Easy to get let go.
If your attitude is not peepy, happy and excited, you can definately be let go.
Make friends... FAST! If your blending in with your other co-workers and not syncing up and having fun.. then your GONE!

Advice to Senior Management

Don't kick people out just because they don't skateboard or are not "awesome" enough people that you might not like, focus on how well people can work!

Pros

enticing benefits & perks
unrestrained "personal time"
nice location & amenities

Cons

poor sightless management based on guilt
innovation at the compromise of quality
high turnover, low stability
lack of collegial respect, high fear

Advice to Senior Management

think long term about your contribution to society and less about the psychological game of stock prices - connecting people with the movies they love should not come at the expense of ostracizing employees you don't love

Pros

Extremely open and honest culture to work in.
Management takes pride in culture and therefore is very candid about both the strategy of the company, and the challenges ahead of us.

Very flat organization.

Cons

No clear career path or career development provided. "High performance" culture means that we aim to hire very talented people (which is great), but we don't hestitate to let some one go if its not going to be a good fit over the long-run.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue being open and candid about our strategic direction; it's extremely helpful in providing both context and unity of purpose.

Pros

Netflix base salaries are high. Engineers are all very senior. The buildings are beautiful and having onsite expresso machines is wonderful. The location near Los Gatos is great. Everyone outside of Netflix understands and loves the service which is a pretty big perk.

Cons

Netflix is the first place I've worked where you can get fired for doing too good of a job. Managers are always changing usually as a result of being shown the door. The constant turnover leads to another problem in that there is not much domain expertise in the systems built in Netflix because of the high turnover.

There is no career growth in Netflix. What you are hired for is more than likely what you will be doing for your stay at the company which on average is only a couple of years. There are cases where engineers / managers morph into something different but it was very rare.

Box lunches are provided but they are terrible. That food is not meant for human consumption. A variety of vendors would be nice.

The unlimited vacation policy is touted as a key benefit but watch out. Constantly changing priorities and short deadlines along with no job overlap means you are going to be able to take that nice vacation to take.

The compensation is skewed in that there are no bonuses or stock grants for the rank and file employees. Insurance for anything beyond the employee ( significant other / family ) will be passed along to the employee. In many cases I've heard this can pretty expensive.

I will say that I did have some good times at Netflix. If you are considering it as a company do your homework, ask the right questions, and make sure you weigh the pros and cons of the environment.

Advice to Senior Management

Fix the culture. While there has been a steady stream of engineers and managers to choose from times have gotten better and there are other choices. Netflix could be so much more if you valued your employees, focused less on the short term distractions, and invest more on making employees love the work environment in the same way everyone loves the Netflix service.

Pros

Higher than market salary
Free lunches
Unlimited PTO

Cons

Fear-based, highly competitive culture driven by upper management. Mid-management is forced to follow the suit otherwise it will be their job on the line. Everyone is under pressure to deliver but nobody provides guidance as to what is expected. If you're a super-star you're supposed to figure it out on your own.
Zero tolerance to even small mistakes - you're expected to work as a perfect robot. If you made a mistake you're out immediately, no chance for correction.
Zero communications about your performance - it is all up to management to decide how you're doing. So you don't know whether you made or making mistakes.
Project management does not exist, hence no planning is happening, just loose email exchanges.
You don't feel as part of the team, there are virtually no teams, just people trying to prove something and keep their jobs. As a result many decisions are short-sited since they provide immediate credit, long-term decisions are usually on back-burner until all of a sudden they become critical and then it is all hands on deck.
You're expected to work long hours and weekends on regular basis.
Basically if you accepted an offer you're owned by Netflix.
Documentation is non-existent, people are secretive about knowledge transfer.
All in all Netflix's motto Freedom comes with Responsibility turns into the situation when company has freedom to do whatever it wants and employees have all responsibilities.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust and respect people. The fact that you pay high salaries and provide unlimited PTO does not mean that you own people's lives. Give people freedom for mistake, at least one. One mistake means nothing especially in first year of employment. Encourage planning.

Pros

Surrounded by quality/competent people.
Immediate health benefits.
Highest dvd plan.
No script.
Encourages employees to take initiative, and is fairly open to allow employees to make judgment calls when where there are no definitive guidelines in place.
Supervisors are talented and empathic individuals, with plenty of knowledge and support to offer.

Cons

Monotonous/repetitive job. Taking on average 80-110 calls daily. If you are not a talker, this job won't pan out for you. Upper management is generally ineffective and out of touch with the common CSR. Guidelines and strategy are routinely changed, with no clear purpose for the change.

Advice to Senior Management

Give more authority to the supervisors, who seem to be more in touch (and more competent) to the duties of being a customer service rep.