Work in HR or Recruiting?
McAfee
3.2 of 5 274 reviews
www.mcafee.com Santa Clara, CA 5000+ Employees
Work in HR? Complete Your Profile

McAfee Reviews

Updated May 21, 2013
All Employees Current Employees Only

3.2 274 reviews

                             

100% Approve of the CEO

McAfee President Michael DeCesare

Michael DeCesare

(5 ratings)

60% of employees recommend this company to a friend
274 employee reviews
Relevance Date Rating
in
  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Culture & Values
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • No Opinion of CEO

 

Santa Clara, CA (US)

Current Employee – been working at McAfee full-time for more than 3 years

Pros1. Dedicated security company if you are from information security this is the place to be in.
2. Excellent compensation package with benefits
3. Nice Healthcare plan.
4. Gym in the building makes it easier for you to exercise

Cons1. Very huge , if you are from startup you might get lost.
2. Lacks agility and slow to adopt new processes or technology as well as slow to adapt in the changing market.
3. Innovation is bought.

Advice to Senior Management1. Empower employees and make them feel how they are creating an impact in important initiatives.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Culture & Values
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • Approves of CEO

 

Waterloo, ON

Current Employee – been working at McAfee full-time for more than 7 years

ProsYour days will go fast as there is more work than you can handle. Everyone works as a Team and are willing to pitch in. You stay at the forefront of the industry.

ConsNo growth/learning opportunities. Work hard. Then work harder. Security industry is non-stop, break neck speed. You'll only get recognition if you work a ton of overtime.

Advice to Senior ManagementStop trying to stretch resources so thin.

– I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • No Opinion of CEO

 

Waterloo, ON

Current Employee – been working at McAfee

ProsPay's not bad.
100% paid prescriptions

ConsNo sick time (must take vacation time acrued)
Over worked, not enough people.
No acknowledgement of working extra hours to accomplish unrealistic schedules.

Advice to Senior ManagementMany people have left. More are leaving.
People there are over worked. Know that.
I have happily moved on and will never look back.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • Disapproves of CEO

4 people found this helpful  

Waterloo, ON

Former Employee – worked at McAfee

ProsPeers in engineering are smart, nice and are willing to help others.
Company will buy you the hardware you need to get you job done, you just need a good business case.
Pay is OK, nothing to get excited about. Negotiate well on hire!
Nice place for a short term.
Free pop, free donuts (once a week), monthly cake day to celebrate birthdays (very recent)
Good benefits

ConsThis is a "Yes" man's place.
No commitment from management to help grow you, they want you happy where you are.
Work life balance is not something valued here!They value deadline over quality.
Burn-out due to stupid duplication of cross-team roles. Developer expected to also be QA, do your job as a coder then do the job of a full-time QA. If QA gets a buggy drop, they+QA management whine about their "deadline" being stretched. QA doesn't want to work past 5pm! So developer have to put in extra hours, this is unfair!!!
They try to fit an agile process in a company that is more like a waterfall software development shop.
They lack real engineering standards, it's really painful how much dev managers are so old school they see no value is using a unit testing framework!
You can work your butt off, put in long hours and you will not get a pay raise to even match inflation. This is not only sad, but plain insulting! More so when a company sees double-digit growth for 8+ consecutive quarters! It's a slap in the face!!
No opportunity for growth, company is really small. you are pretty much stuck where you are.
Slow to embrace new technology, they love to acquire companies for the IP, but zero focus on R&D.
Management will throw you under the bus, even when they are not managing you!
Management is resistance to change, they talk with zero action and lack credibility. Most manager will listen, that is as far as it goes.

Advice to Senior ManagementStop talking, stop taking surveys and just execute. Noting speaks volume then "effective" action. Workers see though the hot air talks, also the surveys are so misleading because no one really believes they are anonymous. As a result "real" feelings between peers is not reflected in the survey management is seeing!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • No Opinion of CEO

2 people found this helpful  

Waterloo, ON

Current Employee – been working at McAfee

ProsThere are interesting project areas, if you are able to switch to a different project, it will help keep one interested. They do have some internal "online" training courses, but they are mostly useless to development, but you are able to view some books online which is nice to have handly. You get the typical free soda, coffee and doughnut Tuesdays. Management is willing to upgrade your hardware if you need them, as long as you can make a business case for new hardware, they will provide it.

ConsMcAfee lacks support for those who want to better themselves, there is no mentorship from higher ups or recognition of people who want to be more proactive and participate in other functional areas. Poor design ideas are thought up in a vacuum by management without asking for feedback or participation of team members. This attitude of management knows best is one reason McAfee is a follower and not a leader in its market. In fact this has been openly stated that we want to be just good enough and let our sales teams crank out the sales!

You feel like a hand not a brain over here, you have to really fight hard to get cool stuff to work on. Usually all the decisions are made for you and then it's up to you to complete the task. You are not appreciated as a thinking member of a bigger team. Lack of resources, people keep getting switched on and off projects. My biggest beef is that it seems like you're always busy working hard, but really noting gets accomplished. Lot of smart people here, but most have given up and it enough for them to just show up to work! This company needs a overhaul on being innovative!!! This can only come from the ground up, because the top-down approach is totally not working here.

Advice to Senior ManagementTake pride in what you build, don't just sell the spin, invest in real home grown R&D.

The company needs to be "proactive" in involving keen developers in different aspects of the design and development cycles. This should be more than just attending a brain-numbing meeting. If I hear one more time the code is the document then we got the wrong people in charge who just don't get it.

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Culture & Values
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • No Opinion of CEO

 

Former Employee – worked at McAfee full-time for more than a year

ProsGood learning opportunities were provided and exposure too

ConsGrowth path was not so clear

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Culture & Values
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • Approves of CEO

 

Santa Clara, CA (US)

Current Employee – been working at McAfee full-time for more than 10 years

ProsGood people; good atmosphere; good work/life balance

ConsLess innovation; less excitement when compared to a startup or a public company

Advice to Senior ManagementNeed to improve morale - get people excited.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Culture & Values
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • Approves of CEO

 

Aylesbury, England (UK)

Current Employee – been working at McAfee full-time for more than 10 years

ProsGreat new office, close teamwork within R&D across the globe.

ConsCareer progression could be improved.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Culture & Values
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         
  • Approves of CEO

 

Current Employee – been working at McAfee full-time

ProsPay is excellent, treats strong players very well, good at getting rid of non-performers, low-drama

ConsProduct management lacks real leadership and shows little expertise in managing a portfolio and driving business results. Good company to work for and has matured quite a bit in the last 5 years.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review

  • Career Opportunities
         
  • Comp & Benefits
         
  • Culture & Values
         
  • Work/Life Balance
         
  • Senior Management
         

 

Current Employee – been working at McAfee part-time

ProsGood work Environment to work

Consless pay for surfmaster, think it is justifiable.

Was this review helpful?
Yes | No
Flag Review
110 of 274 Reviews RSS Feed embed Embed

Worked for McAfee? Contribute to the Community!

Add Review Add Salary Add Interview Review Add Photos

Your response will be removed from the review – this cannot be undone.