Alcohol Culture, beware! They bragged about beer during the interview. - Software Developer Garmin Employee Review

2.0
Jun 19, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The health and retirement benefits are better than average at Garmin. These come from the corporate office in the midwest. My guess is the Maine office would never provide these benefits if it were up to them.

Cons

Constant drinking required to fit in. The company doesn't have any kind of way to recognize a person joining or leaving, or getting promoted, and the engineering group has developed a culture of doing it on their own after work using alcohol. They even boast beer as part of the culture during the interview process. Large groups from Garmin drink together after work, and I am constantly terrified my husband is not going to make it home. He feels that he needs to do it in order to fit in, develop rapport with the other developers, and get promoted. The Yarmouth office is very controlling of employees, including not allowing them to work from home until they were absolutely forced because of Covid. I am filling this out for my husband, who started working at Garmin in Maine over a year ago.

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)

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