Aviation Software Engineer - Software Engineer Garmin Employee Review

3.0
Mar 22, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The 401k match is pretty decent, although it requires a 5 year commitment. Very relaxed environment - I've never been asked or pressured to work more than 40 hours a week.

Cons

Health benefits used to be something to brag about, but not so much any more. I realize that most places are taking a hit after a certain nationwide healthcare enforcement has been put into effect, but don't go bragging about how you have really good healthcare when there are other companies clearly beating you. The idea behind the products are great. The code that runs them, not so much. The software life cycle that takes place may have worked when the company was started 25 years ago, but it does NOT work well with the large code base that exists now. The products are managed by people that have been with the company since the beginning who believe that "this is how we've been doing things" is a good reason for not trying become better. Since all aviation code must live up to FAA standards, all code must be tested in a way that satisfies the FAA. This can lead to nasty hand-waving in order to say that something is "tested" which in turn causes even worse code to be written. Salary is maybe about average, although it's not to hard to find other jobs in the KC area with better base salaries and comparable benefits.

Explore other reviews about Garmin

5.0
Jul 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nice headquarters, good people, fun atmosphere.

Cons

Questionable C-Suite directives/policies. A lot of bureaucracy, and it's difficult to move new ideas forward.

3.0
Jul 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great, and I mean great benefits.

Cons

Poor local culture, everybody is in their own clicks and don't deviate from them. Not a huge amount of office friendliness. Not many team building exercises, and qa gets left out of alot. If you're not a developer, you will have a yard time socially. Coffee is the worst I've had at a company ever. Return to office was not handled right, and the wfh policies were written very vague by a local manager, but what they actually wanted was very specific and was not communicated at all(avg of 1 per month over the course of a year). This lead to a problem where I was denied a wfh request to grieve a dead pet because I used wfh 2 weeks earlier to register a new car ( that I got solely for work commute)

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All