Rackspace Reviews

Pros

I am able to work with a small group of very talented and smart people. We are able to create things that people use.

Cons

The layers between line-level employees and senior management are filled with a vast layer of goopy middle management that tends to slow things down and is constantly in a state of churn. The consequence of the middle management churn is that decisions carry little to no responsibility for those who made them.

Pros

great company culture. honest management level people.

Cons

pay lower than average compare to the same industry.

Pros

The people are amazing. Family is important. Lanham Napier (CEO) is awesome - he sincerely believes that Rackers are the key to the company's success.
Core Values matter at Rackspace. It makes it easy to weed out the Rackers who don't fit - and there are some.

Cons

Transparency is great from the leaders but middle management tend to muddy the message and create confustion.
Lots of new VPs recently who are struggling to embrace the Core Values. Rackers tend to reject this type of leadership. Message to new VPs: Embrace it or go home.
This industry is fast paced and constantly adjusting. If you can't keep up, you will get run over.

Advice to Senior Management

Too many VPs lately. Are the salary ranges for Director level positions so misaligned with the market that you have to hire to the next salary band?
Promote internally. If you can't, it's because you aren't training and investing in Rackers today.
Minorities and women are under-represented in leadership. Diversity encourages more complete thinking.
Stan Slap - really? Did Stan write that survey at Starbucks right before he was suppose to email it out?
Managers should be trained BEFORE they actually manage people. Don't leave a bad manager in place because you can't back fill their role. They just do more damage. Acknowledge a mistake and protect your Rackers before they have no choice but to quit!
Rackers love Rackspace. They believe in Rackspace. Continue to be honest and transparent about the journey ahead and they will not disappoint.

Pros

Job:
- Constant challenges and interesting problems to tackle
- Autonomy to take ownership of issues without micromanagement
- Real sense of purpose/satisfaction in a job well done
- Great experience builder
- Lots of opportunities for free education and certification (MCITP, RHCE, Cisco, CompTIA, PMI, etc)

Culture:
- Most people really want to be there and care deeply about customer service
- Basically no dress code for technical folks
- Values-based culture that places focus on getting things done the right way, both in terms of correctness and in terms of morality, you could say
- Quarterly team outings

Compensation:
- Decent salary for certain positions (especially given San Antonio costs of living)
- Good benefits (health, dental, vision, disability, stock purchase program, FSA/HSA, etc)
- Good vacation time (17 days per year for new employees, 22 days per year for employees with 5 year tenure)
- Flexible scheduling (no nickel-and-dime-ing of time off for doctors appts, etc)

Cons

- There is a lot of tribal/institutional knowledge that is not centralized (common problem with rapid-growth companies)
- A few too many middle managers that don't seem to contribute much besides sitting in meetings
- Lack of solid process controls, over-reliance on hero employees to fill the gaps left by poor planning/implementation
- Some positions are under-compensated in terms of salary. However pay seems to start low and ramp up, for example I make almost 80% more now than when I started a couple years ago.
- Not enough focus on holding individuals accountable for their performance. It's a great environment for self-motivated, high performing individuals to get the job done without micromanagement, but lazy/inept folks can fly under the radar for far too long.
- Not enough focus on retaining top experienced people, however based on recent evidence this seems to have been fixed quite a bit in the last few months.

Advice to Senior Management

- Pick a consistent vision and stick with it.
- Seriously evaluate the quality of middle management and rethink the manager count (one manager for every 4-6 people in some departments is FAR too many).
- Make sure there is sufficient staffing and training to support new initiatives and products.

Pros

Rackspace offer great opportunities for technical training, and you can work with some of the smartest people you'll ever meet.

Cons

Their much-vaunted culture is on a rapid decline, and Rackspace is quickly becoming a place to earn your stripes and progress to somewhere else for better pay and opportunity. Leadership is very disconnected from front-line staff and decisions are frequently made without regard to their impact outside of the bottom line. It's a great company to own stock in, and not such a great one to work for long term.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees. Foster an environment of openness. Steer away from the environment of fear that is currently present. Rackspace prides itself on "fanatical service", but employees are no longer empowered to provide that. There is a huge gulf between the message being broadcast by senior leadership and what Rackers see from their immediate managers.

Pros

People | Exposure to technology | Great Team Leaders | Great company events | Made a lot of good friends while there

Cons

expected to do a lot of overtime | work-life balance issues | pay under market rate | moving from a medium to a large business model | a lot of teams are turning to the call center type approach

Advice to Senior Management

Start listening to the people that on the front lines . a lot of senior managers feel too secure in their positions, they forget that they're here to lead ...

Pros

Rackers have autonomy over their work and there is ample room for career progression. It's great to work with so many smart, engaged people. It makes being at work fun :).

Cons

Fast growth creates all kinds of challenges. Not all bad, but it can be frustrating, depending on the person. Change is a constant at Rackspace. Changing teams, projects, seating etc. If you're not flexible and adaptable, you'll be frustrated.

Advice to Senior Management

With so much growth and change, communication is always a challenge. Finding the right medium and frequency to ensure everyone has the same information has to remain a priority.

Pros

The fellow administrators (Rackers) are amazing people and the company does a lot to foster that family feeling. The building has a lot of perks and makes it somewhat comfortable place to be. If you happen to work first shift, there are lots of opportunities to train and such. And of course you have a lot of freedom in how you dress, etc.

Cons

Staffing levels are so tight you can not take time off without burdening your team. Due the heavy emphasis on "family" in the company, that translates to looking down on even taking sick time when needed as you are putting more pressure on an already stressed out team. Managers are taking the attitude of flinging poo at the wall and seeing what sticks as far as ideas on maintaining growth. The infrastructure, including tools you will use daily to do your job, are unreliable and poorly maintained, and there is little effort or emphasis on fixing that. Senior leadership is spending a lot of time out of the company touring the press, etc.

Also, it appears that this company has forgotten who butters the bread. Non-technical staff are inconsiderate of the support staff by entering the building loudly, acting as if they are not walking by admins on the phone with customers, etc.

It appears to that there is a massive PR campaign in progress to position Rackspace as an acquistion.

Advice to Senior Management

It's simple: When the best and brightest leave, and they all leave for the same reason perhaps you should take notice and do something about that. While you may have been a leader in the past, you will get nowhere unless you have the strong support of your administrators ... in case you've forgotten, and it appears you have, those are the people who make Rackspace great: Not your marketing people, not your managers, not billing. Rackspace appears to have completely lost it's way.

Pros

Good money. Decent benefits. Great resume builder. Industry leader. Well known name. Brilliant executive leadership. Culture still remains within few segments.

Cons

Management is far below industry standard. People have not earned spots such as VP titles. Very little pride on the sales side of the business.

Advice to Senior Management

Take more time to focus on all segments of the business. An organization boasting of their culture should have this vision throughout.

Pros

Exposure to a multitude of unique problems and situations. You will have to wade through an obscene amount of email tickets, but you will have those gems that stick out. You have opportunities to get industry certifications (RHCE, CMDBA, MSCE, CCNA, etc.) that will help you down the road.

Cons

I feel the culture diminished significantly when the company went public, though some irresponsible employees helped. If you're not working days, your workload will be significantly higher, despite the cited breakdown of servers per employee.