Great teams, incompetent executive leadership - Member Of Technical Staff NetApp Employee Review

2.0
Aug 8, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I've worked at the Cranberry Twp, PA office for a while, and I have no complaints about the caliber of engineers (at least in the core software development teams) and all my managers have been technically competent, reasonable, and accommodating. Although it's suffering a brain-drain, there are still a lot of very smart, very cool people here, and I'm legitimately proud to work with them.

Cons

The executive leadership is wildly, demonstratively incompetent. NetApp is an increasingly icky place to work with regular annual layoffs, cratering stock price, and a near-freeze on raises and promotions. (Mind you, NetApp is still extremely profitable - all the layoffs and austerity are to marginally improve the quarterly report numbers in the hope that shareholders won't axe the executive team.) As long as I've worked here, I've listened to a parade of executives bloviating buzzwords and execuspeak in quarterly all-hands meetings. And I just assumed that since they make the big bucks, they probably know what they're doing, and my impression that they’re all incompetent is based in my own business-incompetence. But in six years, I’ve never once seen one of their dumb ideas proved not-dumb. I don’t know how/if the company will ever be successful again. (To be fair, we did just fire the old CEO, and have George Kurian in the interim. I always thought Kurian was one of the good ones - though if he authorized the VED rollout, that might speak against his technical competence.)

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5.0
Jun 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good work life balance (in my team)

Cons

Leadership is bad, stay away!

3.0
Jun 26, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amongst the top companies in the data storage industry = company stability.

Cons

If you'd ask me a year or 2 ago, I would have given the company 5 stars. But, as with most tech companies now, they've started to follow the trend of return to office, regardless of logic. There's little to no room for exceptions and the company would rather sacrifice productivity regardless if they know the hardships for people living in metros (one way commute to the NY or SJC office can take 2 hours one way!) - that and there's no commuter benefits. You have to pay out of pocket and live in fear of not receiving your bonus if you miss the "thrive together" quarterly requirements.

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