Real Management & HR Practices Are Not Equal to What You Hear - Software Engineer Garmin Employee Review

1.0
Jun 11, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Give good benefits Used to have a good reputation

Cons

-- Talented and good employees are leaving because they are not managed/lead correctly. Yet, instead of acknowledging that, management constantly choose to blame those who leave. -- Conservative means not progressive, not open to new ideas/innovation, no employee development, training, low salary and increase, will not spend for anything even for things to support the success of projects/employees. -- Declining performance causes management to be more desperate and strict, yet normally management do not provide clear goals or vision. Therefore, project leads are often under many pressure and often punished for things that are not necessarily their mistakes. -- Many employees are unhappy, yet upper managements continue to keep their current style and process that continue to loose employees' trust and loyalty. -- Servant leadership is what was shared in many of the company's PR, but the real practices of HR and management do not project that at all. -- Organizational structure change constantly, and whenever this happens new management/leader of an area tends to promote people based on subjective reasons (instead of people's real contribution)

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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