Nokia Reviews in Vancouver, BC Area

Pros

Nokia is a company with a heart. It's generous and focuses a lot on work-life balance.

Cons

Sometimes there are too many stakeholders involved in making one decision.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep it simple.

Pros

Excellent place to work, flexible hours, good pay

Cons

company in transition period, lots of uncertainty

Advice to Senior Management

you can do it

Pros

* Management don't overwork people. If we can't make on deadline, then we cut off features
* Great benefits and salary compared to other tech companies
* Lots of intelligent people working in the company
* Great gym, carwash facility, and basketball / tennis / volleyball area
* Great bonus payout

Cons

* Company is in constant flux so expect to move cubicles every 3 months.
* Lack of talent doing the web area. They make Symbian programmers do php programming which results in poor output.
* Promotion can be hard to come by if you don't stick to your team for a long time.
* Most of the people seemed content on what they have. There's no feeling of innovation at all.
* Too much reorganization - senior management do not know what they want.

Pros

Large multinational with the potential to visit other countries
One of the largest mobile manufacturer's
Get to use some cutting edge technologies
Free phones

Cons

Many things done for the wrong reasons.
Too much overlap in projects and duplicated work.
Not much sharing of information between different sites.
Employee's get disciplined for providing opinions on how to solve problems

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees

Pros

Well-known international organization that is trying to get into the smartphone industry.

Cons

High turnover rate for most contract workers within this department due to poor management and inadequate training on the job.

Advice to Senior Management

Management should keep their authority in check and make sure they don't abuse their power just because they can. They should try to investigate before executing.

Pros

Great people
great access to devices
incredible potential
great spirit
may have incredible opportunities given early 2011 re-focus

Cons

Incredibly bureaucratic internal support groups and management
Has lacked leadership (in terms of inspiring and motivating) for too long
Poor internal communication tools, and a company that is in a large number of areas- both in terms of technology and geographies
Currently in turmoil

Advice to Senior Management

Simplify the internal delivery chain
Give teams complete vertical control (not internal component->component delivery)
Make sure everyone has access to and understands the current customer satisfaction; no one should be more than 1-3 steps away from an end customer
Kill the ridiculous bonuses- they should always be tied to that developers products performance in the market. No sales, no bonus.
Lead, and mentor your staff. Be present. Follow through.
Have entire products development teams co-located.

Pros

Nokia is great to their employees in most cases. They respect the work/life balance more than any other company I have had the privileged to work with. They have excellent programs and benefits. Fitness room, Cafeteria, social clubs and training are all available. Healthcare and extended Dental are generous.

Cons

There have been a lot of changes, these changes seem to be reactionary at best. Aren't we all in need of a visionary? Well good luck Nokia I wish you well.

Advice to Senior Management

Trust the experts you hire and allow them the freedom to accomplish the goals you clearly define.

Pros

technology leader (almost), friendly atmosphere. Respect for people's personal needs, managers try to match company's needs with employee's preferrences when assining jobs. Well equipped labs. Open relations with managers. Not much pressure, no micromanagenet. Good bennefit package, but salaries somewhat stalled in past few years. Equal treatment. Considerate and knowledgeable middle management.

Cons

A bit constrained tech-wise as there is (at least in Van) only one line of HW products, namely cell phones. In that sense, there is somewhat modest room for innovation and creativity. Sometimes slow to respond to market trends.
Some mid-managers are technicaly competent, but sleezy and incapable of leading organizing a simple meeting, let alone a team.

Advice to Senior Management

Put an accent to innovation, though it is market leader, Nokia has not been a tech leader in the last little while.

Pros

It's a prestige to work at Nokia in Vancouver when there isn't many major technology corporations in this town. In an era when mobile devices are gaining popularity and consumers are always looking for the next most powerful mobile device, it is a great feeling to be working in products that means so much to a lot of people.

Nokia does have a relatively flexible and enjoyable work environment where people are generally very friendly and helpful. There isn't a feeling of competition within the company, and everyone seems to be very happy with their roles and responsibilities, and thus office politics is very minimal.

The managers for the most part are very understanding, and treats everyone fairly. There isn't a lot of "no" from managers when you make a request.

Cons

Nokia doesn't possess the talent base that could be found in Microsoft and/or Google, but there are bright people there for sure. I got a feeling that some people there do their job, and that's it. There isn't much a sense of innovative spirit across the teams that work on a product. People seem to be satisfied by getting the job, and aren't really looking to make it the best in the market.

When we were making a new product, an engineer told me that he hopes this sells well enough to cover the cost, so that this development site doesn't get shut down. Um...that doesn't sound very optimistic.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire a younger workforce to do technology, and hire experienced people with energy and ambition to lead others. Ultimately work morale is dictated by how motivated your manager is.

Pros

Salary, working environment and people are great. There are lots opportunities within the company all over the world.

Cons

Too many managers in the office and the organization in each department is quite complex. Nobody monitors the performance of the team and lack of feedback.

Advice to Senior Management

Simplified the management level. Make the manager to do the work. It would be better if manager is also rate by the people working for them. The feedback and rating should be from all directions instead of from top to bottom.