TiVo Reviews

Pros

Very humane company with smart people. Interesting work, great products, civilized hours for most employees (a bit worse for engineers). Real emphasis on work/life balance. Very few jerks.

Cons

The business is shrinking, opportunities for growth are limited. There is a sense that management played it too conservatively, and by not taking big bets, could not get a big win.

Advice to Senior Management

Reinvest int he company, find a way to harness the ideas and enthusiasm of less senior employees.

Pros

free coffee and parking. good technology advances

Cons

Company is on the downturn

Advice to Senior Management

improve the company culture and it's stock value

Pros

Talented co-workers
Value separation home/personal life
Good managers

Cons

Boring
Lack of a corporate culture
Cubicle city
Slow product cycle
Not exciting

Advice to Senior Management

I don't even know where to begin...That should say enough for you.

Pros

Great product, great people, fun place to work

Cons

Need more diversified products and business diversification

Advice to Senior Management

Great product, great people, fun place to work. Need more diversified products and business diversification.

Pros

Flexable work culture with lot of work with limited resources to work on gives oppourtinutiy to work on latest and greatest in technology. Flexibale work atmosphere

Cons

Growth Oppourtunities are not clealy laid out . Transperancy of the the company future not very clearly comunicated to the employees.

Pros

It is a fun, startup like atmosphere, yet you can balance life and work. There is never a dull moment.

Cons

TiVo faces a lot of risks as a company with new internet based services, cord cutting, and inability to protect their market in core DVR technologies.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't be afraid to take bold steps - reinvent a better TV experience again

Pros

The coworkers were very friendly and knowledgeable. These are definitely the people who make TiVos great but don't get the acknowledgement for their work. Fun parties even a few where you can bring a guest or your family. There is free fruit and 25 cents sodas. The working hours are very flexible and I really enjoyed learning and gaining the experience during my time at TiVo.

Cons

All contractors are treated poorly. After your one year contract is up, you either find another job or wait three months and may be able to come back for work. TiVo is made up of roughly 60% contractors and 40% full-time employees. Even if you provide the knowledge and skills to move TiVo forward as a company, you will still be let go when your contract is over. Managers need to be reviewed because many of them do not know how to do their jobs. Some seem like they got the job via connections instead of management skills and experience. The company is not moving forward in creating DVRs that are beyond the capabilities of what is available right now.

Advice to Senior Management

Create DVRs that are beyond the technology that is available right now if you want to move forward. Make sure that developers actually do their jobs (i.e. SD screens are still not converted to HD and it makes TiVo's UI look very outdated). There are so many contractors that are very intelligent but are let go because their contracts are over. Hire MORE qualified contractors instead of hiring employees who are colleagues or friends. Make sure managers actually know how to do their jobs. There are so many managers that do not know the basics of management. Allow contractors to review managers or team leads before their contracts are over. This would really help TiVo in deciding if there should be changes made to move the company forward.

Pros

There is a shocking number of very bright, hard-working, and pleasant engineers (and employees overall) many of whom have been at the company for years. This talent level is agreed to be a strong point by many new people who have joined the company. Once you are established there is very good work/life balance.

Upper management is great in terms of business development. The company is overall growing due to a constant stream of projects, many with international partners. There is no lack of work in the foreseeable future and there is opportunity for talented people to contribute and take on larger tasks relatively quickly.

Despite downsides and challenges there is open acknowledgement of substantial problems and genuine effort being put into improving.

Cons

Years of mismanagement (due largely to previous regime) at the project planning and upper engineering level combined with too many projects has created a disaster. The degree of these issues is surprising even to Silicon Valley veterans.

Much onus is put on individual engineers to somehow figure out complex systems and how to get work done. That's very hard on newer people and eats a lot of time at senior personal.

The management structure is too hierarchical (should be flattened) and overall the company is not driven nearly enough by engineers/engineering.

Advice to Senior Management

Overall, progress is being made too slowly. We have ample work, we have lots of talent, we just need to break old and bad patterns and we could be great.

1. If every project runs over by 50% (time-wise) then face reality and make schedules longer.

2. Aggressively attack barriers to efficiency. Many systems and technologies are out-dated, built in house, undocumented, and near impossible to use without asking for help. It's shockingly difficult to get setup to solve even the most basic of bugs and other problems.

3. At the beginning of each project put out a 1 page list of goals. At the end of the project standardize project post-mortems, let everyone grade how the goals went, list ways to improve the process, etc. This needs to be mandatory and standardized.

4. The true reason projects ever get done, despite all the craziness, is due to some very talented and dedicated engineers (many long-serving senior engineers). Spreading them out across increasing projects and branches is counter-productive. Get them working together on one main branch and watch everything start to *just work*.

5. Retention is high because people see the potential for greatness, but they won't wait forever. It is time to aggressively move forward.

Pros

If you're a contractor looking for a steady gig, this is low-hanging fruit. If you're an long-term TiVo employee who loves rescuing failing projects, you've got a job for life.

Cons

Picture yourself working on N infinitely complex death-march projects concurrently, each one requiring N-1/Nths of your time, none of them ever ship, and you get the blame.

Advice to Senior Management

If you often seem clueless as to how to consistently deliver quality software on time, please consider that might be true.

Pros

No so stressful. Everyone knows what he/she needs to work on. Flexible hours. People are friendly and helping each other.

Cons

A lot of runing tests over and over. Too familiar to the test cases that people sometimes over look problems.

Advice to Senior Management

Exchange people from and to different group so that the work won't be so bored. Hire more permanent workers will eliminate training.