WatchGuard Technologies Reviews

Pros

SE role is very focused. In other words, pre-sales comes before anything else. All planning and strategy focused on growing partner base and visiting partners/customers. Very layed back Seattle company. Overall, pretty good people to work with and a good place to work. No hassle with expenses. After 5:30, your done!

Cons

No time off at end of qtr - can be tough around Christmas.
Travel is pushed very hard - expected to travel 3 out of every 4 weeks from Tuesday to Thursday. The pressure leads to travel with little purpose - in other words you'll waste a lot of time away from home. Pay is not up to par with other tech companies - not really close. Support issues cause lots of grief. WG doesn't have the development staff like most other tech companies so they fall behind on features in a big way.

Pros

Have much free time to schedule your tasks. Colleagues are kind and willing to help.

Cons

Things always go slowly. Technologies are quite old and lack of competition. Nobody would like to change anything. Products are not solid enough. They don't pay attention to China market, and seem not to in the future. Managers don't know what to do and have no ideas on marketing.

Advice to Senior Management

Do not always try to hold your management position. Think about development and what customers and engineers want.

Pros

small company with good location..

Cons

less politics compared with others..

Pros

small company with little politics

Cons

technology has issues that keep resurfacing.

Advice to Senior Management

n/a

Pros

Products are solid as are most of the people.

Cons

Poor brand awareness and marketing

Advice to Senior Management

Build a better brand and figure out what to do with XCS.

Pros

Good technology, nice people, competitive salaries and benefits.

Cons

Mature industry. Tough competition. Limited upside.

Advice to Senior Management

.

Pros

Security is a good field to work in.

Cons

Watchguard has limped along without good engineering or marketing management for years, while competitors like Sonicwall and Fortinet have stolen most of their market share in firewall/UTM. The Watchguard executive team seems to be happy to milk the ever decreasing maintenance revenue from existing customers, and doing questionable acquisition deals that never seem to return any profit.

As a developer, I grew sick of having to maintain buggy spaghetti code while waiting years for my new releases to ship due to longstanding product issues that dragged on for ever. Ultimately most of the good development talent left either like I did, or got laid off when Watchguard started outsourcing development to their new office in China.

Advice to Senior Management

You can't expect an engineering organization to run with no competent leadership.

Pros

Everyone worked hard, helped each other, and was committed to the company's success. There were smart, passionate folks in all departments, with a common desire to provide strong security, real product value, and great customer service. Also, there was a lot of flexibility with virtual work arrangements, and some nice occasional perks (pizza, latte's, etc).

Cons

Unrealistic expectations often led to unachievable schedules, in spite of significant and sustained efforts by many. This pattern escalated through various leadership changes, with the usual impacts on quality, communication, teamwork, and morale.

Advice to Senior Management

Set realistic objectives and schedules. The team will be able to deliver even higher quality products, in less actual calendar time.

Pros

With a smaller company there was always opportunity to move forward. The management team tended to reward hard work and dedication. Decent benefits that, as with all things could be better or worse depending on your situation. Very good team work within the groups. Always felt that you could get assistance when needed.

Cons

The marketing team did not do enough early on in the company to spread WatchGuard's story. They had technology leadership in their segment, but neglected to tell anyone on the street. In order to grow you must match the product with the story you are telling. (Look at how well Apple has done marketing a mp3 player in the market with the ipods.)

Advice to Senior Management

Pick a vision for the company and drive in that direction!!!

Pros

Salaries were always pretty competitive. If you find the right job, you can make 10-20% more than similar jobs elsewhere. Nice offices in the International District.

Cons

Terrible management that has gotten worse over time. Product architecture and vision completely broken. Nothing ships on time. Poor communication with staff. In short, a once great startup that was taken over by private equity people who appear to have no idea what they are doing. They are now on their third or fourth set of incompetent executives since 2001. Morale is very poor, and many of the key engineers have moved onto greener fields elsewhere.

Advice to Senior Management

Update your resumes.