Quest Software (California) Reviews

Pros

Pretty relaxing place to work.
All-around competent people.
Doesn't skimp on technologies and tools to get the job done.
Fresh fruit.
Very nice office space, plenty of lounge areas.

Cons

Some of the long-timers are downers and have a certain fear of management in them that prevents them from innovating. Or perhaps they just sucked in the first place and are still around for some reason...

I never understand why all the incoming fruit is never ripe when they come in yet it'll be all gone by Tuesday. I think people are just stock-piling fruit for when they get ripe the following week. Dang you hoarders!

Advice to Senior Management

Can there be more performance based incentives for non-sales people?

Pros

Good portfolio of core software products (mostly through acquisition). Aliso Viejo headquarters is a great location away from the comparative urban mess of places like Irvine, where many OC high-tech companies reside.

Cons

Insufficient due diligence performed on some acquired products. It is better to write from scratch than acquire software with internal design problems that are almost impossible to fix.

Pros

People are nice in general. Work time can be flexible if you are in R&D. West Coast casual, but IT best-in-class organization. It would be good if you are engineers.

Cons

Company keep buying small software companies; often organization change. Integration after the company purchase seems to be challenging to senior management; it is like different small companies among different product teams. The limit of number of vacation days is lower than average. Stock option availability to engineers (even if senior developers) seem to be limited.

Advice to Senior Management

Benefit should be able to be considered and updated if the company would like to keep efficient employees/engineers.

Pros

Casual work env, decent benefits

Cons

Absolutely no scope for promotions, Management (middle level, senior) dont listen to suggestions or changes. Poor communication - most of the IT jobs are dead-end jobs...

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees.. They have a lot more to say (Grass root level)

Pros

Development teams are pretty much left on their own to do their work if they are successful, which for a company that grows primarily by acquisitions is a good stable way to grow the business without disturbing employees too much. HR policies are somewhat progressive (it is a CA company) and provide for same-sex partnerships.

Cons

Executive decisions are strongly reactive, capricious, and seldom based on any real data. There is zero communication from the top about anything Quest is doing, even when it regards your specific team. Questions come in the form of very specific queries that belie a complete misunderstanding of the real-world situation. This results in nonsensical decisions that hurt Quest significantly.

In general, any department that is centralized by Quest is incompetent. For instance, HR cannot seem to deliver their policy handbooks before the end of the open enrollment period, so you have to choose benefits blindly and are unaware of policy changes.

Advice to Senior Management

Actually speaking to the people who know something about how a particular department functions can prevent you from making the sort of egregious mistakes that I've seen. Requesting specific tidbits of information based on hearsay and an incomplete picture will not result in an accurate picture of the truth on the ground.

Pros

Quest has a nice facility an historically a lot of nice perks for employees. Some great co-workers

Cons

Sr. Management cares very little about the welfare or morale of employees. There is a great deal of immaturity and inappropriate behavior allowed in the workplace.

Pros

Open environment, flexible, great balance for professional and personal development.

Cons

There is an oportunity to get better working environment on subsidiaries outside USA.

Advice to Senior Management

Great Vision on Software technology Market

Pros

The people makes a company, and at Quest there are some very smart people that are not only good at what they do, but compassionate, fun, and just overall good people. And this isn't just the grunts, there are some really good people in management as well

Cons

The company is made of a hodge podge of acquired companies, trying to integrate all the different acquisitions is impossibly difficult, especially with each acquisition comes management changes and the cultures of each acquired company is different. In the end there's more diverging directions due to each business unit having their own agendas.

Advice to Senior Management

Can't say there's anything wrong with management even though I don't work there anymore. Any problem Quest faces has far more to do with integration of the business units. The sooner the leaders of each unit realize that there's more to gain for collaboration the better off the company will be.

Pros

1. You will learn a lot and collaborate with team members to resolve difficult "fun" cases.
2. Relaxed dress code and free fruit in the kitchen.
3. Nice and knowledgeable co-workers.
4. Close to freeways.

Cons

1. Not good pay or benefits.
2. Very small pay increases, if any, even to top performers.
3. Always putting out fires and severly under-staffed.
4. Low morale.
6. Furloughs for employees but senior management keeps spending cash on aquisitions and gaudy events for sales force.

Advice to Senior Management

Current employees hold more value than the aquisitions you're drooling about so give them a proper yearly increase. If you can't factor in inflation, call volume, difficulty of cases, etc., find someone who can. There are a lot of hard workers at Quest Software and they deserve to be compensated too not just your sales force. One final thought, there is no upward mobility there so start at the bottom and see where you can go - best case scenario you'll end up jumping into another group, that's not upward mobility.

Pros

Quest is a great place to work if you want to go to work, do your job, and go home. Most jobs don't require extra hours unless specifically stated at certain times of the year.

If you're not concerned with making things better or improving the current state of affairs, Quest is the place for you but don't rock the boat too much.

Cons

Previously flexible with work hours, as time went on Quest became much more rigid. Working from home is frowned upon these days and some managers can be more than rigid with your hours.

There are a number of managers at Quest that have been around for a long time but they really don't appear to add any value to the organization. In some cases, these people hinder Quest's growth and success.

Politics continue to get worse as time goes on and those that open their mouths in an attempt to make things better should watch their backs.

Advice to Senior Management

Be careful that you don't ask too much of your employees. It was extremely upsetting to be forced to give up my vacation time or my pay at the same time that Quest was spending money on other unnecessary items such as useless gifts for its employees.