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.)

Explore other reviews about NetApp

5.0
Jun 7, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

NetApp is a prestigious company, working for this company will be a great resume boost if you cannot break into top fortune 500 companies. Relatively easy to get into NetApp. Competitive pay.

Cons

Frequent layoffs. Understaffed which could equate to higher expected output.

3.0
Jun 9, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Not the worst pay around - Opportunity for advancement if you get the right management - Good financial benefits (ESPP, 401k options, mega backdoor Roth) - The one thing GK is good at is driving up the company stock price. Hope you got yourself some RSUs

Cons

- NetApp hasn't made a new product in 10 years, so you'll be hard pressed to find development work that isn't directly tied to supporting what was built before then. - Very little innovation other than weekend-project-level AI tools - Health and dental benefits are not great - Upper management is completely detached from reality

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All