Guidewire Reviews

Cons

Large company and growing - so there are naturally pains involved.

Cons

There's a ton of change happening across departments simultaneously, so it's overwhelming for people like me who like stability.

Cons

While some teams are allowed to freely interact and grow working relationships, others are expected to keep their nose to the grindstone all day long and interact with others only when required. If you talk with others to much, your manager will absolutely call you out on it. If you aren't performing on par with others, reports are readily available to show your shortcomings, but reports are just numbers and no detail. You are micromanaged to the nth degree. I feel I cannot interact freely with my own team, and the team is isolated not only from the rest of the employees, but from each other as well. Therefore collaboration among the teams rarely happens. I see other groups bringing in coffee for their team members, or some other treat, but a few groups would never be allowed to go on an afternoon coffee run. The time you arrive and leave is watched closely. There are also card readers on both sides of the doors leading to the bathrooms, so it feels as if your bathroom breaks may even be monitored as well. Existing technology is horribly under-utilized and all processes have vast amount of potential to be improved and streamlined. However, the teams are stretched too thin to work on process refinement. Talent within teams is also vastly underutilized due to current environment.

Cons

Struggled to integrate acquisitions and seemed to always be restructuring

Cons

Office is a little chaotic, could be a little more organized.

Cons

Poor integration of acquisitions and ability to execute

Cons

I cannot think of any significant downside. Yes, if I compare it to Google and Facebook we certainly can improve our benefits. But it's not something that bothers me.

Cons

The company is struggling mightily with how to bring its products and strategy into the next decade. That leads to a lot of strategic churn and all the things that go with it - changing focus, reorganizations, etc.

Cons

Guidewire used to be a bottom up company. Developers were given freedom to drive projects. Now it's top down culture. Management holds most decision power - while not being hands-on enough to really understand what's going on. It's OK if you just want a cushy job and don't mind being told to implement suboptimal solutions. Not good if you are aspired to do the right thing.
Technical caliber of engineering teams is going down as more old timers quit.

Cons

The management in product development has been deteriorating in the last several years. A few years ago, a full product-dev re-org was followed by a second reboot to fix the mistakes of the first. After the re-org, engineers ended up less involved in important decisions. Appreciation of successful project delivery meaning respect, awards, or occasional promotion to project participants also subsided. The social (party) budget of teams increased substantially but that cannot mask the real issues.