nCircle Reviews

Current Employee – been working at nCircle

Pros – A terrific blend of California start-up and established company. Friendly, easy-to-work-with co-workers and management. Terrific work-life balance. Suitably challenging workplace.

Cons – Occasional difficulties with supporting a legacy product; cross-team communication generally excellent but company's dispersed locations sometimes makes that a challenge.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep it up! nCircle boasts some of the most responsive, congenial management I've ever worked with, and should serve as an example to the industry of how a company should be led.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at nCircle full-time for more than a year

Pros – Work from home on Friday's is pretty great. Free lunch on Thursday's. That's where it ends for the pro's.

Cons – If you have ever wanted to work at a company full of anti-social personalities that love to gossip about each other, don't communicate, have very bad tempers and aren't really all that skilled, this place is for you!

A lot of very, very strange personalities at this company that are incredibly anti social. Most of management is new and have no clue what they are doing or how to manage a team. One day they'll communicate details with you, and then next month you'll barely hear from them. Then they start asking questions when work isn't getting done and wonder why. A huge lack of leadership and understanding of what it takes to actually *lead*.

Do not expect consistent reviews and feedback unless it is negative. Do not expect a "Thanks" or "Great job!". Do not expect gratitude. Sure, they're paying you, but a simple "Keep up the good work." every now and then from people that matter says more than money does any day!

Management is known to gossip to other employees about other employees on the team and spread rumors as well as personal details about those employees. I personally had an experience with this and had learned from management about personal conversations between them and an employee. This is usually a big no-no in companies with HR.

They are out of touch with today's market. Company thinks 35k for a college graduate from one of the highest ranking tech schools in the nation is "great pay" and "they'd be happy to make that much".

Skill sets vary at this company. There are very few people that really know their stuff and that you can learn from. Everyone else is stuck in 1995, but thinks that their skill set is valuable. Typically, those people have very large ego's too.

More time is spent arguing at this place than actually getting work done. I was in meetings where over 2 hours of arguments took place and yet nothing was finalized. It was simply due to ego's and each person wanting to prove they were right.

There are some fun and friendly people here, but those people are all very upset with this place as well, so it may not take them long to find another job. Then all you will be left with are the people that really don't know how to socialize and like to gossip about each other.

Advice to Senior Management – Wise up. The market in the tech world makes it so very easy to find a job if you're skilled. There are so many people in this company that would be fired from a more professional company simply due to huge HR violations that would potentially cause law suits.

Show some appreciation towards your employees. Recognize good work where it's warranted and don't always just look for the negative. Simple praise goes a long way to make employees feel they're important and make them happy to be there.

Insist that the most difficult personalities in that company (and there are A LOT) have some sort of therapy or counseling on how to actually socialize without tempers and or being rude.

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

Former Employee – worked at nCircle full-time for more than a year

Pros – Pay for a support role can be OK.
Most co-workers were nice to work with and very energetic.

Cons – * No training before fielding support issues for customers
* People hoard information necessary for job performance.
* Any initiatives taken to help in the above areas were shunned
* Support is always running short on personnel - they do not seem concerned about turn over and in no rush to hire replacements.
* VERY stressful environment
* Don't expect to go home until a customer issue is resolved (even if it means working 18 hours.)
* Sales Engineers do not complain to their/your VP in order to get more people, but love to scream at you when the group is still shorthanded.
* Management seems to avoid angry customers
* Management seems to avoid YOU when dealing with angry customers
* Management is not proactive in fixing issues and is only reactive
* Complaints fell on deaf ears (HR inclusive).
* Problem goes all the way up to VP/CEO levels.

Advice to Senior Management – * Treat your staff more humanely.
* Welcome initiative when making the job easier/more efficient. Criticism is counter-productive.
* Welcome initiative when trying to get new hires trained and up to speed quicker. Condemnation is counter-productive.
* Be more aggressive in keeping staff trained and proficient.
* Be more aggressive AND *timely* in keeping replacements hired.
* Do not give away slots to other departments when you are understaffed.
* Be more proactive and engage in working with hostile customers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at nCircle

Pros – Solid management team with longevity
Treats employees with respect and fairness
Financially solid, in growth mode
Non political environment
Good location - easy to use public transportation

Cons – Distributed workforce sometimes makes it hard to communicate
Smaller company so it has less room for growth opportunities within the company

Advice to Senior Management – Make sure you are always communicating to the entire team about what's going on in the company in all locations so everyone can feel involved.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at nCircle

Pros – Cool technology, great location close to everything

Cons – Want to earn minimal pay even though you have your CCIE, CISSP, and other top level certs? Go work for nCircle - or earn 40-60K more at most other companies in the Bay Area. Is this a reflection of how you'll be treated financially after hiring? You betcha!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at nCircle

Pros – nCircle has been through several cycles of management, and while it hasn't always been easy or painless, it has forced them to evaluate their direction more often than other companies and stay nimble. They seem to have found a balance and are executing well on the vision.

Some pros include:
Smart people
Motivated workplace
Great technology
Culture of innovation and high achievement
Good work/life balance
Market leader in vulnerability management and configuration compliance management

Cons – I think nCircle has some of the less enjoyable parts of any workplace: occasional politics, a person who annoys you and sometimes you don't get recognized for your accomplishments. However, having worked at a number of startups, the level of politics is very low, there's more people that are interesting and engaging than annoying, and you will get recognized for 90% of your achievements, so you have to consider it relative to other technology companies. On the whole, it's a great place to work.

Advice to Senior Management – Stay focused on innovation and growth. Keep the smart people and listen to them. Crush the competition. Don't ever let politics and petty infighting linger.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at nCircle

Pros – Good, smart people. Company is growing. Nice location in downtown San Francisco. Benefits are reasonable. Pay is good. Company good about letting you have time off.

Cons – Products are no longer competitive and have quality problems. Competitors are moving faster. Company is growing, but so slowly that it seems like it's being left behind.

Advice to Senior Management – Make the hard decisions and stick to them. Get rid of underperformers faster. Be more creative in thinking about your overall strategy. Maybe be a little more encouraging.

Current Employee – been working at nCircle

Pros – Liberal work from home policy; laissez faire management; interesting and mostly talented people; convenient and pleasant offices; good sales team

Cons – Boring place for engineering talent - Maintenance mode of products, no innovation, complete lack of career growth; talent leaves rather than stick around in a frustrating holding pattern. Lack of communication between divisions; no leadership

Advice to Senior Management – Show up for work; Lead the company; Promote internally to motivate people; Loose some of the bloat in upper management

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at nCircle

Pros – If you're interested in information security development, you can often find yourself surrounded by aggressive, ego-centric teenagers who are really just chasing personal glory. nCircle offers an environment of really smart, generally humble, technically savvy adults who want to work hard, share their knowledge, and participate in a successful business.

Cons – The only downside is that sometimes things don't happen fast enough. It seems like nCircle senior management takes a conservative approach to running a business. While that's probably better overall, it can be frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management – Work harder to unite the pools of talent across the company.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at nCircle

Pros – Spacious offices in downtown SF; they at one point had one of the best collections of security researchers and engineering talent, and that reputation still holds some weight.

Cons – Most of the people who built the current products have since left the company, most to start other companies in the same space. They are very much in maintenance mode with their current product line, and aren't really doing much in terms of new products/technology. It felt like a place whose best days were long past. Politics are a nightmare.

Advice to Senior Management – Find replacements and depart -- reinvest in engineering talent with an enterprise software (vs. desktop software) background. Look at new products instead of warmed-over retreads of existing products.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend