Real Reviews in Seattle, WA Area

Pros

Overall, Real is very good about how they treat their employees and the fantastic attitudes of those that work there are proof.

Cons

Real has been saddled with a less than positive reputation in the industry and amongst consumers. It is very hard for people to see past our past despite the many great accomplishments and products we have made.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep sharing with your employees. There is talk about the feelings of being a family, well that means we share in the ups and the downs.

Pros

1. Very good benefits, great location
2. I was given time-off whenever I needed it and had flexibility to work from home

Cons

Where do I start:
1. Lot of micro-management and name calling...so much of dirty politics that I wonder how work gets done here.
2. I never laughed when I was here, the atmosphere is just so stressful, when is the next cut coming, who will go, is the company going to be there tomorrow....
3. Growth is next to minimal and as someone else has sadi, salary is a big joke.
4. The company doesnt have a direction. Decisions are taken without any aim.
5. New ideas are not encouraged and are in fact brutally crushed.

Advice to Senior Management

People lower in the stack like Developers, testers form the core of the company, invest after them.

Pros

Interesting technology, good Seattle location,

Cons

Mean people, a lot of pressure

Advice to Senior Management

Care about employees

Pros

Pros:
- Good work / life balance, only occasional periods of heavy overtime
- Decent benefits
- Reasonable salary
- Seattle location is great

Cons

Cons:
- No trust amongst employees, lots of finger pointing, lot of effort spent on CYA activities rather than on just getting the job done.
- No communication from managers on whether I'm doing a good job, what I could improve, how to advance, etc.

Advice to Senior Management

I think they've been trying hard lately, and that's encouraging - please keep it up!

Pros

+ Great location, subsidized parking, free bus pass
+ Friendly support staff (admins, building security)
+ Good cafeteria with long hours (8am-6pm)
+ Very good benefits with tuition reimbursement
+ Pleasant work environment with flexible hours for most part

Cons

- Absolutely horrible management at every level
- The onus is on short term revenue and not one manager has the sense to look at the bigger picture. In the name of short term revenue, one team blew the chance for Helix to be part of the Android stack. A director from the same team pretty much killed off the open source effort that Real had spent years building up. Quality suffers and customers don't come back.
- Pay is a joke
- Non-technical personnel at various positions including Program Managers, Directors, VP of Technology and heck, even the CEO is not technical enough.
- Layoffs every 3 months does wonders to your morale as an employee. The *biggest* problem I have with Real is how they have active hiring on the side (anywhere between 10-30 positions open) as they are still laying people off. This is borderline unethical. The jobs are being to China and India in the name of costs cutting but there are no hiring freezes ever. This is something Real's useless HR needs to learn from their neighbors at Redmond. Again this is a big FU to your employees who have been with you for 4-8 years.
- Dependent on advertising and people installing Yahoo/Google/WeatherChannel toolbar to generate revenue. No real products - downsize all you want but without any products, there's no future.

Advice to Senior Management

I could give a lot of advice but nothing's going to change.

Pros

There are some very talented, hardworking people at Real who believe that what they are doing will save the company. Holding onto these people is Real's only hope at success.

Cons

Overall Real is currently a sad place to work. There are quarterly layoffs, many of the current staff is actively looking for jobs and the demands on personal lives require a lot of sacrifice. Be warned...it is far from the happiest place on earth.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to think further down the road than next quarters profits. Your most valuable resources are your employees and you've burned them over and over. There is very little trust that the company is heading in the right direction.

Pros

Excellent benefits to make up for mediocre salary

Cons

company maturity is not where it should be. goals are moving targets. most employees are unable to explain how the company makes money.

Advice to Senior Management

focus on alignment of goals throughout the organization which align with tangible KPIs, and effectively communicate change to the organizations

Pros

Real provides excellent medical benefits, educational reimbursement, and a pleasant work environment (at least in terms of the actual creature comforts of the Seattle offices).

Cons

Real Networks is getting progressively smaller as it sheds virtually all of its initiatives. Sadly the initiatives it has made in the past few years have been either ill-advised or poor cousins of already release products by other companies.

It feels like a company trying to whittle itself down to sustainability, adopting a siege mentality. The ideas that actually get executed on often baffle me in terms of who would think its a good or profitable idea.

Advice to Senior Management

Find a product to market to consumers. Find a way to distance yourselves from the horrible reputation Real had in the past due to its intrusive application issues. That doesn't mean just ignoring it and hoping that the reputation fades. It means actively finding a way to appeal to the technically inclined and convincing them that you make cool products and aren't simply a bunch of mercenaries.

Pros

Good tools are available
Some of the people are smart and can be relied upon.
Plenty of opportunities for professional growth.
Yoga classes onsite

Cons

Disfunctional middle managers
Lack of long term vision in the company that results in constant changes in direction
Poor communication culture - it is impossible to get a response to an email
No consistent development process

Advice to Senior Management

Decide which direction you want to move the company and keep the direction. Currently the company is jumping from one extreme to the other.

Pros

- good location
- flexible
- work hard and it's recognized

Cons

- management's eyes were off the ball. Contract employees were pillaging the place while they focused on stemming the flow.

Advice to Senior Management

- focus in before you focus out, but do it fast