Verisign Reviews in Mountain View, CA

Pros

There are a decent number of internal opportunities if you know where to look and build a good internal network.

Cons

The company often underinvests in new opportunities and isn't agressive enough against competitors. Many people in the administrative roles are unimpressive and can be difficult to work with.

Advice to Senior Management

So long!

Pros

Verisign has a lot of great people, interesting projects to work on, and good salary and benefits.

Cons

Large org., it can be hard to feel like you've made a meaningful difference to the bottom line.

Advice to Senior Management

Your people are your largest asset, make sure you maintain an environment where they are challenged, with leaders of integrity and intelligence they can look up to.

Pros

Offers better pay and benefit than comparable companies in the valley.

Cons

Too many emails, meetings, and re-visiting decisions rather than actual work

Advice to Senior Management

Need to take more active role in helping employees develop career plans for internal promotion and personal enrichment. Also, need to focus on promoting more effective teams to work smarter instead of harder.

Pros

Good Pay and time off, and benefits - that's it.

Cons

Slow to change, no direction, and no team meetings from manager. You are on your own in this company... Unprofessional overall but they do pay well.

Advice to Senior Management

Go back to business school!

Pros

Good benefits -- 401K, fitness reimbursement, lactation program, reasonable amount of paid holidays.

Cons

There aren't any really big cons to working here. The pay isn't at the top of the market, but it is not at the bottom of the market either.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work.

Pros

The company is not going away anytime soon so you have a job for a while.
Excellent location.
Good benefits at a low cost to employees.
Engineers who do the actual coding are good to work with.

Cons

Micro management and no ability for a person to make a decision on their own. Resulting in a slow project time and bottle neck from management.
Too many layers making it more people to keep in the loop which again dis-empowers you from making a decision as well as slowing things down.
Not a collaborative culture. Favors throwing things over the wall to each other. Product lifecycles reflect this as well.
Technology is old.
Managers routinely check up on employees to make sure they are working their hours and tracking of time is done in a digital timesheet.
Engineering management ties their own teams hands to do the right thing for the customer.
Lack of processes and the ones that are in place just done make sense.

Advice to Senior Management

Make more dramatic changes and the mid management level. They are killing what you are trying to build.
Rethink how you develop and bring a product to market.

Pros

Verisign is a leader in it's space so name recognition definitely help us sell
Great products in the space that I sold in - they were the best in their class
Great sales support
Excellent package of benefits from day 1
They paid well for managers - but reps were paid less that comparable roles in other companies

Cons

Too many aquisitions left employees confused about our focus
Upper management didn't seem to know direction to take company
Not much encouragement to grow within the company and get promoted

Advice to Senior Management

Pick and direction to move the company in and focus on that

Pros

flexible work hours with independence, compensation is high, strong brand name, market recognized the contribution form the company and the products. mark m is ashining light.

Cons

no career development, lack of feeling a belonging to a team and changes after changes on the direction of the company. restructure after restructure

Advice to Senior Management

stick with a plan, ANY plan and execute. develop talent while bringing in experience to lead at the top. there are many capable people at VerSign, but there is also a need for sr. management to lead and develop.

Pros

Generally, very high quality people so there is less wear and tear with toxic personalities. Fun activities for the different work groups.

Cons

Layoffs, weak management at the top. The products are interesting, but they aren't always able to be competitive. There are lots of legacy products that are showing their age.

Advice to Senior Management

Fund innovative ideas. Take care who you lay off so you don't dump the meat with the fat. Still need a strong CEO.

Pros

Compensation is good, you are always busy, and you are not discouraged from taking on interesting responsibilities if you see an opportunity. If you are in the right department and a favorite, you can do really well.

Cons

Burnout. The amount of work done by a very small number is exhausting and people are wrung dry. Also there is a lot of favoritism. People are promoted to VP with no or few direct reports, while other people who do a great job, have large teams, and get consistently high reviews are not promoted. There is very little chance for professional development in many departments, particularly engineering.

Advice to Senior Management

Settle down, pick a strategy, and stick with it for at least a couple of years. It's been hard with all the change in management, but it's also strange to spend months completely reorganizing the company and planning a new strategy only to completely change everything less than a year later.