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      SparkFun

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      SparkFun reviews

      2.4

      26% would recommend to a friend

      (39 total reviews)

      Nathan Seidle

      29% approve of CEO

      12% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      3.1

      Diversity & inclusion

      2.9

      Work/Life balance

      2.4

      Culture & values

      2.0

      Compensation and benefits

      2.0

      Career opportunities

      1.6

      Senior management

      SparkFun has an employee rating of 2.4 out of 5 stars, based on 39 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The SparkFun employee rating is 38% below average for employers within the Retail & Wholesale industry (3.9 stars).

      Ratings by demographic groups

      Reviews by job title

      39 reviews
      1.0
      May 20, 2019

      Don't walk, RUN! faar away from any internal aspects of SparkFun.

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Dogs (if you have them, if not, others in the company that let them roam unattended are annoying while you're trying to work), and beer.. under very specific (but not actually posted or written anywhere) guidelines.

      Cons

      Micro Management, constantly changing direction (ergo, really no direction) resulting in instability. Horrible benefits (the only good one is the employee discount.. and even that doesn't nearly outweigh the rest of the problems there), extremely low wages while having abnormally high and miscommunicated expectations. Next to no autonomy despite their claims to the contrary and lies about "being transparent".

      2.0
      Jul 17, 2015

      Toxic and stressful

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      There are a lot of really great people that work at SparkFun. What the company does is really cool. The building itself is quirky and fun, and the employee discount is great for parts.

      Cons

      Literally no leadership. CEO has no idea how to be a CEO and gets lost in the weeds. He doesn't provide direction for the company and the result is a business that doesn't know what it wants to be. This causes stress for employees and results in some really weird business decisions. Environment can be a lot like high school, with cliques and gossip and backstabbing. There's very little professional respect for anyone who's not an engineer or developer. Culture is cult-like and misogynistic. If you're a woman and/or in a non-engineering field, this place is very frustrating and draining.

      3.0
      Dec 23, 2019

      Fully established company operates like a brand new start up.

      Customer service manager
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Fun work environment for the most part. Dog friendly. The benefits were also pretty solid, too. When I was there they matched 401k up to 6%! Great work life balance.

      Cons

      Very sexist upper management. I have seen first hand in meetings where ideas from women are completely ignored but the exact same idea from a man is hailed as genius. The pay. When I was there SparkFun Electronics chronically underpaid all of its positions. We called this the "Spark Fun Tax". SparkFun, at the time, was hoping they could leverage how "fun" or "cool" it was to work there in order to justify lower wages. That's fine if you are fresh out of college but for someone trying to do things like have a career and buy a house it's a problem.

      Viewing 1 - 3 of 39 Reviews
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      Glassdoor has 42 SparkFun reviews submitted anonymously by SparkFun employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if SparkFun is right for you.