Symantec Reviews

Current Employee – been working at Symantec full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – I feel lucky that my management allows me lots of freedom to work on projects of my choosing. They encourage initiative and foster a sense of trust. I do appreciate that the entire company does not provide the same flexibility to all employees, but in our group we try to maintain an environment where everyone is given a certain amount of leeway to work on other things, as long as the core job is done.

Cons – The management was pretty scattered when trying to come up with priorities, but it looks like this is changing - hopefully for the better.

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

Former Employee – worked at Symantec

Pros – -Flexibility in working on projects which are of interest to you
-Open learning environment
-Good efforts by senior management to promote disclosure of problems and ideas for improvement

Cons – -Lack of updated documentation
-Roles were at times ill-defined in the matrix organizational format which existed within my department
-Product knowledge was often in developer's heads and not documented
-Many simultaneous projects with unclear prioritizations had to be juggled

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

Current Employee – been working at Symantec

Pros – Symantec has a world-wide reputation and name-brand.

Cons – Very bright executive, who have no idea what the next level of management is doing to undermine their vision of what Symantec is about. A lot of very capable people are on the verge of leaving or have left.

Advice to Senior Management – Please care about your staff.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Symantec

Pros – Friendly/family type work environment with flexible hours and an approachable and understanding management team. There is arguably good team unity.

Cons – Mandatory week of vacation during December subtracted from accrued vacation hours.
Poor pay compared to US equivalent positions.
Continually reduced workforce and resources despite constantly increasing work load.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop mandatory holiday time. Stop treating Canada like 'cheap labour' (we've heard as much in nicer words from US managers in the past) when it comes to budget.

Current Employee – been working at Symantec

Pros – good, comprehensive benefits package, great facilities including a modern gym, onsite restaurant and spacious lunch room, quality equipment, excellent chairs (aeron).

Cons – Looking back I can't believe I gave 6 years of my life to this company. It was ok when I started, then things started to get worse and worse. I survived numerous rounds of layoffs and the change of managers at an average of 3 per year. Some of the individuals promoted in managerial positions had little or no experience, and the fear of losing their job made them more concerned with company politics than with team cohesion, or healthy work environment. The whole thing made me sick, literally, and I am happy I decided to move on to work for a different company. Overall, the Symantec experience was the worst of my over 20 year career in IT.

Advice to Senior Management – Appreciate value, reward hard work, promote good people in managerial positions. Understand that competitiveness should not happen to the detriment of collaboration, teamwork and healthy work environment.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Symantec

Pros – It is a job that pays well and usually has regular hours. Sometimes there are expectations to work evenings and weekends, which is fine. However, these are usually associated with poorly thought out schedules or missing requirements that are thrown at staff in the last seconds.

Cons – Gross amounts of negligence and poor hiring practices. Little accountability in development work and a poor preference towards using development like spokes on a wheel. There is a very strong corporate mentality towards politics over performance. Nepatism is rapant, which only worsens the situation.

Advice to Senior Management – Trust your staff more, and not the ones who burned out during development to become managers.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Symantec

Pros – Access to a number of market leading technologies. A reasonable overall comp plan. Some of the products actually sell without having to beat the customer into submission...

Cons – Local sales-management team is horrible (stop looking at Excel spreadsheets and get out an support your team!). Too many products to learn - this makes it tough to be an expert in anything. Customer acceptance of our sercurity products is not present... not sure Symantec actually understands security at the enterprise level.

Advice to Senior Management – Keep on going with the current strategy and vision. It seems strong. Look beyond the $$ numbers at the local level, and see what the local managment team is doing to hinder success.

Current Employee – been working at Symantec

Pros – Industry leading company (revenues, profits) with industry dominant products (marketshare, reputation) and a very large, established customer base. Brand recognition

Cons – Poor communication from management on the vision and direction of the company. Company is not innovating as much as the competition and ensuring it stays ahead of the competition. As a result, losing competitiveness in the marketplace and starting to see an exodus of good people. Support (both technical and non-technical) has been atrocious, despite apparent attempts by management to focus on improving it

Advice to Senior Management – Need to be more nimble and active (both pro- and re-) in meeting customer's needs and complaints. Need more seasoned management to make the decisions required to get this company to the next level

Former Employee – worked at Symantec as an intern for less than a year

Pros – My hours were from when I got out of school until around 5-6. They taught me everything I needed to know and gave me all the material to learn from. Aside from that, you only needed some experience with the Microsoft Office suite

Cons – My boss was the worst part. Learn to get on their good side, fast.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Symantec full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – It was a good place to work

Cons – No particular problems at this

Advice to Senior Management – No particular problems with management

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend