Webroot Software Reviews in San Mateo, CA

I have been working at Webroot Software

Pros – Forward thinking executive staff, culture allows for the ability to innovate fast, make mistakes fast, learn, and move on.

Cons – Not a place for whiners. Not a con in my book. Not a place for people who "just want a job."

Advice to Senior Management – Continue to keep it real, and let's go, don't rethink stuff into blandness....

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Webroot Software full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Every couple of years they trick employees into believing there is a technology revolution coming and the company may go public, The carrot is always hanging.

Cons – Where do I begin?
There are constant lay-offs and high profile departures. Look at the facts. The company has gone from almost 600 employees worldwide to just around 400 in a little over a year.
This company isn't making any money. They threw away their flagship products and are now making even less than they did before.
In their zest to lighten the load, they laid-off the people who actually worked. They retained manager-types who don't even delegate well.
The management types love to use buzzwords like frictionless but are only capable of spreading political malice. The same can be said about people recently promoted to the executive level.
When they do reward hard work their decisions leave one scratching their head - executives who are barely pubescent and have never even had management experience?
The less we talk about their acquisitions, the better. When was the last time a webroot acquisition result in financial benefits for the company? errr never,. No really, NEVER.

Advice to Senior Management – None. Thanks for the carrot. Good luck with your incompetent engineering management team.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Webroot Software full-time for more than a year

Pros – Laid back place - not a lot to do if you are a manager. Very few projects and people to handle right now.

Great work life balance - i can come in at 11 and walk out at 4. Most of the team works in another office so as long as they get the job done there are only meetings to attend and reports to send.

Great place for QA - QA is very high up the food chain now. We do PM work as well.

Great benefits - Allowed to take spouse to business trips and company pays for it.

Recognition - boss allows me to use business trips as layover for personal trips. 2 birds, one stone. I can make business trips between time-offs and company is fine with sponsoring the personal trip to my vacation destination. Depends on the boss obviously but if you do good work you will get recognized.

Cons – Boring - can get boring. For example i have been working on same script for last 5 months that no one uses. More work for engineers but for managers its pretty boring.

meetings - too many meetings and status reports. usually engineers do the reports but still a pain having to correct their grammar, format, etc

not many technical people left - most of the technical people have left so we have more managers than engineers now. Managers have not been trained in the actual work so the remaining engineers are overburdened.

Advice to Senior Management – Hire people who know what they are doing

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at Webroot Software full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Probably work life balance.
A decent office space.

Cons – - I have seen this company go from good to ugly. There is a constant struggle in the company to meet the expectations of the board (which it fails most of the time)
- The upper management does not understand that morale of the company is down and they have to bring it back. Most of the good employees left the company and the ones left are not satisfied with it.
- All eggs are kept in one product and most of the product decisions are taking by developers. There are hardly any product managers.
- For such a small company, there are lot of internal politics
- There is nothing to learn here, the senior management doesn't encourage automation or spending time to find new testing scenarios.
- There is no value for time or efforts.
- There is no 401k match

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Webroot Software full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – I no longer work here!

Cons – This company may likely not last beyond December 2012. In continuing to trust the current management and their buddies from their past affiliations they have ensured Webroot dies a painful death. In under a year the company has slowly gone from having over 500 employees to under 350. That's a huge percentage drop.

After a number of horrible acquisitions with no return on investment the company management has bet the entire house on the assumption that the one lone biased reviewer will help bring back a dead product. Worst still like another reviewer mentioned, is that politics has ensured the wrong people are either let go or allowed to let go. Sorry to say so but if you are still working at Webroot you either have very low self esteem or lack talent to get a job someplace where it matters. Get out before no one else hires you due to your affiliation with Webroot.

Advice to Senior Management – What's the point? They haven't listened to anyone else thus far. There's your advice.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at Webroot Software

Pros – The talent of the community is impressive

Cons – The clarity of strategic direction communicated down to the lowest levels

I have been working at Webroot Software

Pros – - Webroot used to be a great place to work. It was a place you spoke of to make your friends envious.
- Compensation is ok if you're a new hire. (Not worth it IMO when you read the section below)
- If you ever worked with the aging CEO at another company, this is a great place for you. You'll be in a redundant VP/SVP position in no time.
- Rules and policies change constantly. How is that a pro you ask? We're never bored! There's always plenty of rumors going around - where will the office move to? who's going to be laid off? who's going to be politely demoted? am I going to report to the non-techy nincompoop again? they promoted WHO?

I honestly tried to be fair with the Pros but that's all I have. Someone new at this company might have a more positive outlook. You know the 'sr product marketing manager still on her honeymoon with the company' types.

Cons – Get a fresh cuppa jo, this might take a while.
- Clueless exec management. Often times emails and memos that are sent out make you scratch your head in wonderment. Get used to frequent WTF?!!! moments at Webroot. (Elvis-PCI-BestBuy.... epic email!)
- If you work here, good luck finding a job after Webroot. Your skills will stagnate. It's a pity that this company is wasting real estate space in the Silicon Valley. They talk of innovation as if they patented the word, but there is ZERO innovation. Our products are so behind we're constantly playing catch-up with competition (and failing miserably).
- Product management is non-technical. So they aren't supposed to be the most technical, but they should be up-to-speed with the latest technology. This is not the case.
- Engineering management stopped honing their technical skills the day they got promoted and they never had any management skills to begin with. End result is engineering meetings that would make a great episode of the Office. There seriously isn't anything of consequence being discussed in these meetings, except maybe the aftermath of the last release.
Speaking of last release - we have a LOT of them. We don't fix problems here at Webroot - we patch them with band-aid fixes. In Hollywood lingo, our product is the Joan Rivers of security products (old and withered with botox and a b*0b-job).
- We lose people every month, yet we hardly ever replace them. If we do replace them, its usually with another reject from a bigger company. People here have HORRIBLE interviewing skills.
- Quality over Quantity - Managers here don't know how to say no. Nor do they have the ability to make a rational argument in favor of quality. We have far too many projects going on at once and just not enough people. One group of engineers work on multiple products and product-lines

Here's a typical product life cycle at Webroot. Co-incidentally these illustrate most of the above points -

-PM gets forced into a corner by a retailer and commits to an impossible delivery date
-PM walks to QA/Dev managers office. Says we need this magic unicorn delivered in a month.
-Managers agree. Project is initiated, project manager is notified. Engineers get told to add on another project to their already confusing deliverables list.
-Project manager tracks new project, aggressively questions progress and statuses the project.
-Dev starts coding, QA tests the code (both poorly I may add because of points made above ... not enough dev/qa engineers, too many projects, hiring under-performers...)
-Meanwhile bug-tracking system goes down AGAIN
-Support finds 10 people out of a million who are experiencing a minor issue. Everyone is asked to drop what they are doing and help out. All projects on hold (until you get home and are required to provide status to the project manager).
-Project deadline slips. Product Manager is mad. This makes the CTO mad, which makes the Director mad (see we follow a weird chain of command, not on paper, but in response)
-More engineers are asked to help on unicorn, people who have never worked on a unicorn before. Sorry, no training for you. Google what you need and get to work.
-Half a unicorn is built, 100 defects in queue. Project Manager is now upset. Dev/QA managers are hopeful (How? Another WTF?!! moment).
-Meanwhile, bug tracking system goes down. Requirements change mid-way, only the lone manager who doesn't read emails is communicated.
- 3/4th of a handicapped unicorn is complete. It looks more like an ass but hey its something. Project Manager broadcasts the good news. CEO/VP congratulate everyone. Hooray!
-Meanwhile, bug tracking system is back up but there's a fire in the building. Oh and we are moving.
-Turns out bug count had slipped because bug tracking system was down before. It's back up now and so is bug count. More panic!
-Engineers are working over-time, more poor quality code. But unicorn is now complete. All known defects are considered ok to ship with. We did it! Badges and IPads are handed out. The world is safe again.
-Few months later, teams have moved onto newer projects. Support is still fielding calls on unicorns with broken legs, missing tails, etc.

Advice to Senior Management – 1) Do peer-reviews, look up performance reviews and fire everyone who doesn't make the cut (including yourself)
2) Hire real talent, not rejects from another company. Stop hiring friends!
3) Invert that upside down pyramid. We need more workers and fewer VPs/SVPs.
4) Please stop hiring people who can't speak English. Communication is key.
5) Stop thinking of Webroot as a leader in anything. It is not! Strive to be one, but don't be under the false impression that we're there already.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Webroot Software

Pros – Great people to work with - supportive and helpful

Great technology - innovative and forward-thinking company with key strategic partnerships

Growing company - a place to be proud of to work at

Cons – Sometimes multiple projects and must prioritize how much one can accomplish in a fixed time to meet deadlines - but recognized for hard work so it's okay

Advice to Senior Management – Make sure to clearly define the goals in the short-term (1-2 quarters) vs. long term (1 year and beyond)

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend