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Management is awful - Technical Support Engineer VMware Employee Review

1.0
Apr 29, 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Let me start off by saying that the pros are great: 401k benefits, free food, choice of three shifts (early, normal, late), open environment, and fun company events. Coworkers even host events and invite you to join so you bond quickly if you're willing to make new friends. You work in a great area where everything is easily accessible and dress code is reasonable. When you start off at the company, it feels great.

Cons

As you slowly start to experience how the company is run, you tend to question whether this is normal or not. Can you really not work from home? Are you randomly selected to work on weekends and after hours if you don't pick a spot to sign up? Are managers supposed to comprise of people with less than 3 years experience? Are you supposed to be punished for helping other people? Do they ever encourage you for what a good job you're doing? Can you even move to a career opportunity you want to do? You can tell from other negative reviews that they talk about inexperienced managers. They are true. I don't want this to deter anyone from seeing the bright side of this company (because it's still growing), but until managers get better trained to make everyone happy (including themselves), I do not recommend anyone to go through that and think corporate industries run like this. It makes your life stressful, you feel like what you're doing is not worth it, and you lose your voice and imagination that can better shape the company. As a disclaimer, not ALL managers are like this. There are AMAZING managers in this company, but I am specifically talking about ones in the Technical Support role.

Explore other reviews about VMware

5.0
Jun 24, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

VMware is a big company but in many ways had a startup vibe. That was great because the resources and infrastructure of a big company were there, but it gave most people I worked with freedom to work on many projects, influence, move around, and contribute in many ways. Plus, many things moved faster than they might at other companies of the same size. Perks were really great including bonuses, events on the campus, opportunities, etc.

Cons

The biggest con is the annual layoff. During most of the years I was there, we were growing like crazy, beating expectations, gaining in stock price, etc. It was always positive and upward. However, every single January, it was known that there would be a round of layoffs, even when all numbers were looking great as they almost always were. Management called it restructuring. But, over the years, some really good people were let go for no apparent reason. Then to add insult to injury, a week or two later, there would be a company quarterly meeting discussing how VMware was doing so well and is still hiring, but they had to make some changes. It always felt dishonest and the sympathy for those let go came across as disingenuous.

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