Netflix Reviews

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

Pros – paid well. work long hours without vacation.

Cons – The culture is bad. They claim they only hiring superstar, but superstars will not go to the company, the engineer quality is so-so.

Advice to Senior Management – Your culture is not that great. You company just like Enron

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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

Pros – Good pay, decent benefits. At least it's not Cambodia

Cons – There are so many I don't know where to start.

Advice to Senior Management – Treat your employees as assets, not like the doormats you wipe your boots on.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Netflix full-time for less than a year

Pros – The pay is above average. The environment is kept very clean. The dress code is very relaxed.

Cons – Everything else about the job. I worked for Netflix for 3 months and had to quit. I have never left a job so quickly. It's that bad. You know you're in a culture of fear when the person training your group talks about how they were nearly fired. I was told I would be let go during training if I didn't "improve". The problem is they were incapable of telling me what needed "improving". I've worked in customer service for over a decade and never been exposed to such a fear based culture. If you read other reviews of Netflix you'll find that most people have had a similar experience.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop throwing your customer service under the bus.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Netflix full-time for less than a year

Pros – You're given independence and the ability to do your job how you see fit - some of the time. Most of the time management runs around like a chicken with their collective head cut off and priorities constantly change.

Cons – - The salaries are competitive, but not particularly high, despite what their so called slide deck proclaims. Keep in mind that your stock purchase and "bonus" is included, so $160k at Google is the same as $210k at Netflix.

- Constant threats of firing, a culture of fear and throwing other employees under the bus to save your own skin. The threats of firing lead to crunch and absurd stress levels.

- Employees aren't as intelligent as other high tech firms, they're hired more for the ability to play corporate politics than technical skill.

- To follow on the above, the average stay here seems to be about a year. Understand that Netflix isn't an engineering company, it's an entertainment company and a fragile streaming infrastructure and clunky front end is built to consume that entertainment. But content is king, not the technology, and it never will be.

Advice to Senior Management – I'd recommend working on technology a bit more. With the continual turnover and exodus of engineers, the technology and products are a house of cards.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Netflix full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Pay and benefits. They typically pay above scale and provide benefits from the time you become a full time employee.

Cons – Management, on several occasions missed their mark on several key initiatives in the center. Specifically they never had a clue what was happening on the floor in regards to employee satisfaction and were never involved in developing employees to rank up.

"Manage up or out" was stated on several occasions and this approach is what developed a culture of fear in the call center. High turnover is never a positive motivating factor and management was quick to let go of the people who stood against that ideal.

Advice to Senior Management – I would share advice but management seems to agree with Hastings' approach of shooting from the hip and not listening to his trusted advisors.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

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

Pros – Completely on your own for running the business, making day to day decisions on employees (hiring and firing)

Cons – High pressure, high stress, little to no room for advancement. High turnover in the management ranks and the front line employees get almost no benefuts. You have unlimited vacation but never get a chance to use it. Micromanaged by every person above you unless things fgo wrong-then you are on your won.

Advice to Senior Management – You have great managers int he feild. Let them do the job you hired them to, reward them for the 10-14 hour days, and set back and reap the harvest of their efforts in the feild. Also, as many hub managers as you have turnover, you might need to look at the operational set-up and ask yourself why the average lifesapn of a manager is 12-18 months!!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Netflix full-time for less than a year

Pros – The pay is competitive for the position

Cons – Their training and tools are awful

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Netflix full-time for less than a year

Pros – Free Netflix account. You also get free self-worth and self-esteem draining sessions with management.

Cons – Insane high turn-over. Lack of support from management..

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Netflix full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – - top of market base salary
- 4 DVD out plan is free
- do not penny pinch on equipment, get whatever you want.

Cons – - freedom and responsbility is their mantra when you're hired, but it is not practiced by new managers.
- people get fired all the time for disagreeing or questioning management on anything.
- On some teams(mine, not all) there was no collaboration in design between managers and programmers. The managers designed it and the only freedom the programmers had was to develop it exactly in that manner. If you disagreed with the design, you guessed it: your fired.
- even star performers routinely get the axe. Others remaining are understandably nervous about their jobs.
- so called stock plan makes no sense at all. Only plan I've ever heard of where an employee has to risk his own money to participate.
- benefits are awful if you have a family. It cost me $800/month to have medical and dental for the family of 4. If your single, your completely covered.
- no vacation paid when you leave. This is also a plus in a way though. Netflix does not track vacation time at all. If you take too much though, you will get fired without warning.

Advice to Senior Management – - take off that powerpoint presentation from jobs.netflix.com about the Netflix culture. It no longer applies. Netflix has turned into the mature company that is envisioned in the slide deck. Star performers no longer want to work there.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

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

Pros – - Pay
- Challenge
- Can't think of another.

Cons – - Nature of the position was not presented accurately before hiring. (they sold it as an HR position, but it was a glorified mechanic/ops manager job).
- The turnover is insane. Out of about 65 hubs (at the time), there were about 6 emails about managers who were terminated my first week. That rate was very common.
- There is absolutely no training or assistance if you need it.
- You are viewed as a commodity.
- They feel (and they'll tell you so!) that they can pay you a lot so you can produce fabulous results no matter what.
- They fire people for no reason. I believe during the economic downturn maybe they fired a lot of management to replace with cheaper managers, but that may have even been going on before I got there.
- They wanted to penalize me for having too many cracked discs in my hub, but couldn't find anything my employees or myself were doing wrong. Offerred no helpful advice, etc. Said we were doing great. Got canned anyway. I always had great reviews, above average everywhere else I've ever worked.

Advice to Senior Management – Realize that turnover costs a lot of money. Either your hiring process is seriously off (and it is), or you need to develop a training/follow up program for management. You aren't getting the results you want with ANY managers? Maybe the common denominator is you.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend