innoPath Reviews

Pros

Engineers are respected.
People are friendly and collaborative.
Finances are sound.
Technical staff are generally experienced and able to contribute in multiple areas.
Adequate pay and benefits
Sunnyvale, CA location

Cons

New employees get little mentoring and have to learn the products mostly from the bottom up.
Product development is done with very little process.

Advice to Senior Management

Consider adding a bit more process--not to much,though. You have some very talented people who understand how to work effectively. Don't take the negative reviews here too seriously; experiences and expectations will differ, but it's hard to believe some of these people are talking about the same company.

Pros

- No need to work hard.
- Decent pay.
- Located close to good places to eat on El Camino Real.
- Foosball and pool table, although the QA people pretty much are always using them.

Cons

- Tremendous amount of senior management micromanaging leads to no personal initiative.
- Lack on any clear strategy or corporate goals.
- Weak management team.
- Most of the good engineering talent has left.
- Very hard to get anything done unless the CEO has personally approved and is shepherding it.

Advice to Senior Management

- Management is weak and needs to be replaced.

Pros

InnoPath is a job. I'm not sure why everyone is complaining. A job is where you trade time for money and in that respect InnoPath meets all the basic requirements.

One of the best things about InnoPath is that they really expect very little of their employees. If you set your personal goals and values aside and simply do what your boss tells you to do, you will be fine and probably highly regarded by Management.

This notion that in Silicon Valley, each of is going to make an impact is silly. Grow up and face the reality that everyone is just a laborer. The only difference is that your degree gets you a 6 figure salary instead of an hourly wage. Self actualization is not part of the deal. If you can get your head around this concept, you can survive and actually thrive at InnoPath.

Why else would you be happy at InnoPath?

1. The pay is decent.
2. The benefits are decent
3. The workload is manageable (Provided you do only what you are told)
4. They let you bring your dog to work.
5. The building is comfortable, easy to access, and has plenty of parking.
6. They feed you dinner!

Finally, and most importantly, unlike other companies, the rules of the game at InnoPath are very easy to follow.

1. There is only one person you need to please. Figure out what that person likes to hear and say it often.

2. Don't make decisions. Regardless of what you have been told, you are not being paid to make any calls. Executive management is very willing and happy to make all decisions for you. They do not hold it against you for asking them for their advice on mundane issues.

3. Avoid conflict. The path of least resistance is always the path you want to be on.

4. Accept that even if you follow 1 through 3, nothing in life is guranteed and you could still find yourself out of a job next month.

In summary, InnoPath is not Hell nor is it Nirvana. It is a job that pays decently for as long as it lasts. To all the whiners out there, suck it up and be glad you have or had a job as long as you did.

Cons

Too many people spend their time complaining about the place.

Advice to Senior Management

Hire nothing but people who have been out of work for at least 6 months and who's homes are in pre-forclosure. The morale will improve and there will be much less negative energy in the place.

Pros

It is good that now the management is realizing some political elements in the lower management is a problem.

Cons

Great that management is getting rid of the political people.

Advice to Senior Management

Clean out the bluffers and corrupt politicians, and look for the right technical direction.

Pros

Office lights come on at 6am automatically (know this well from working many all nighters).
QA personnel could always be found at the pool table and fuse-ball table.
Free dinner so you'd work later, great if you don't have a family, or a life.
Lots of meetings, discussions are always taken offline; so you'll have meetings to have more meetings; will keep your wheels spinning.
Life is good as a code churner, no accountability, no system architect.
Realistic nay sayers are considered negative, so always answer with "Yes, I'll take care of it".

Cons

Senior executives can't make simple decisions and makes empty promises.
No sales traction, no new customers, and lost lots of old ones.
Unsustainable and unsupportable product; developers write code in a vacuum without documentation.
Executives can't plan past a paper bag, can't plan past next week.
You'll burn excess PTO, this is normal as you can't take days off with too much stuff to do.

Advice to Senior Management

Happy satisfied customers are the best advertisement for the company product. Stop lying to the customers. Heroics from the support organization were frowned upon, but nobody would admit it was due to lack of planning and poor resource management. CEO micromanagement on weekly software bug triage is not good use of a CEO's time. Empower the support team and stop laying blame.

Pros

The office is comfortable t o work and since product is constance, job has not much difficulty in technology I think.

Cons

There is no compensation for accomplishment.

Advice to Senior Management

they are not smart.

Pros

The ActiveCare announcement was the primary reason I joined the company - it should be the growth area for InnoPath and the fact that other vendors are moving into this space validates that it was indeed a great vision. I found most of my colleagues to be very competent in the product space where InnoPath made its name.

Cons

Execution is the challenge. The company needs to have more expertise in customer care. It was clear to me that InnoPath was a product company who struggled with executing well in the customer care space. Now that others are focusing on this market the company needs to raise its game otherwise it may well be overtaken by those who have longer track records and more expertise in customer care.

Advice to Senior Management

Add the customer care expertise that is so obviously lacking before its too late.

Pros

Company revenue grew year after year
Still give yearly performance bonus
Major player in the field
Got some major wireless carriers as customers

Cons

Previous politic in-fighting and current aggressive schedule resulted in unstable product
Bad account management resulted in losing big customers
Unrealistic and aggressive schedules/goals even resulted in cancelling whole release (rare in any company)

Advice to Senior Management

Don't treat engineers just as working machines

Pros

-Overall good work environment
-Good exposure across all groups within the organization
-Decent benefits and paid time off
-Decent stock options (atleast those who joined early)
-Competitive bonuses are still given, which is generally rare in todays economy.

Cons

-The market is maturing too slowly. Company is profitable for now but not clear what will happen in the future.

-Internal politics, this should not happen for a company this small

Advice to Senior Management

Sell the company before its too late

Pros

Decent market potential, got a good set of customers right now that needs to be built on.

Cons

Need to improve morale
Management needs to be more open minded to ideas
More talent needs to be hired

Advice to Senior Management

Identify your weak managers!