Symantec Reviews

Pros

Good place to gain experience

Cons

depend on who you know with mix corp. culture

Pros

Good work/life balance
Social atmosphere, good coworkers
Reasonable pay

Cons

Beaurocracy gets in the way of sales
Sales management is under the influence of finance and legal.
Too slow to react to a rapidly changing Technology Marketplace- don't work in one of the emerging technology sectors/ or non-sweet spots. Company is too slow to respond adequately and do what is necessary to break into a new market.

Advice to Senior Management

Do what is right for the customer.

Pros

work - life balance
professional development
company's purpose of fighting cyberecrime
growth in needs for company's services
strong brand name

Cons

lacking in planning process
very silo'd
sometimes too beuraucratic
unfair rewards recognition
top management more concerned about personal politics over business success

Advice to Senior Management

be sincere; get more professionl in business planning

Pros

1. Wonderul compensation and benefits in the industry
2. Leaders in the security and storage domain
3. Get to interact with most talanted technical experts in security and storage domain
4. Excellent facilities. Spacious cabins for each and excellent food cafeteria etc.

Cons

1. I worked in few groups and found work culture differs from group to group. Its all on group directors descrition what kind of work culture to cultivate in his group. Symantec doesnt have policies for universal work culture across all groups. You feel like another group different company.

2. They say, one company one team, but actually its not ! Even inside groups, there are many teams but there is lack of communication and coordination across teams. Many tasks are redundant.

3. In Secutity group, work culture is not at all friendly. Managers show their attitude. Engineers call "Sir" to managers and its pathetic. Typical bossing is observed. However in storage groups, its not the case (Especially those from Veritas, have very healthy workculture)

4. In Storage groups, tech leads / managers / architects seen making fun of engineers in meetings. This is very bad.

5. There is lack of effort recognition in security group. Also US team doesnt do knowledge share with India team. There are nerds and veterans in US team but they do not share their knowledge to the newly joined team members in India. It affects productivity.

Advice to Senior Management

1. Managers in Storage Group should not act over smart. Many times they observed to make fun out of engineers and their ideas. They should rather encourage their teams.

2. Managers in security, do not show your attitude to engineers. Learn to give respect and get respect. You cannot force your team to give you respect,

Pros

Play in great technology segments - lots of opportunities

Cons

Cannot execute things right - more failure than success

Advice to Senior Management

1) reduce 50% of VP, Sr Directors, Directors, Senior Mgr. and only retain competent ones, at least half of them should never be there
2) make "Distinguished engineers" do real works - this is not IBM, we cannot afford to waste money like this

Pros

Open environment
Respect and benifit and not compensation is good

Cons

Lack of objectivity in decisions or
Senior people can not communicate the same objectively.

Advice to Senior Management

grow up.

Pros

- Good HR policies, benefits
- Good work and personal life balance
- Free and good quality of food and snacks.
- Minimum politics among colleagues

Cons

- Occasional reorganization is not always welcomed.
- Fear of getting layoff is always their in mind of employee.
- Almost no on site opportunity.

Advice to Senior Management

Please have a look at other product based companies of your size and imitate their good policies. Cost cutting policies are some time expensive.

Pros

Technical employees, good work environment

Cons

Sometimes hard to digest newly acquired companies

Pros

- Good benefits, fairly flexible options based on life situations.
- Pretty competitive pay initially.
- Fair amount of annual leave/PTO.
- Good training program.

Cons

- Bi-annual layoffs the industry can set their watches by
- Abysmal chances for meaningful salary increases, even if you excel in your review
- Limited communication from "on high" as to the direction the company is going
- Teams are often pitted against each other as they were previously competing products prior to being bought out by Symantec.

Advice to Senior Management

Improve the morale within the ranks by doing whatever it takes to retain the top talent that is routinely shed in the name of saving a few bucks around budget time. It'll pay off big in the long run.

Pros

Benefits such as pay and bonuses

Cons

Working in the support environment leaves little flexibility