Autonomy Reviews

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

Pros – Becoming more HP like and customer centric

Cons – time of instability and uncertainty

Advice to Senior Management – Quicken the process to integrate

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

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

Pros – Since the directors quit a couple of months ago things have got much better here. Plus the web filter that stopped us getting to a load of websites has gone and the dress code is casual at last.

But the best thing about being here is the rest of the dev team who are great guys and you learn loads from each other.

Cons – Though the former directors were the cause of most of the negativity here we could still probably do with some new ones so I hope someone's looking.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – New management really gets it. Things are starting to turn around, but there's a ways to go.

Cons – There are lots of challenges, and it will take a while to fix what is broken.

Advice to Senior Management – Let us have more access to HP's systems and infrastructure.

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

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

Pros – - HP culture is getting through and we feel things are going to only get better
- More integration with HP personnel
- I feel less threatened by the firing culture, where every 6 months, people get fired for no apparent reason
- Stock bonus that was previously a mirage
- more hiring in my team that sometimes I think it's too much
- HP stock purchase program

Cons – We need SMS calls to go AWAY. The ones who wanted it are now gone. Come on people!

Advice to Senior Management – - The ones who needed advice are now gone. Just think and make things better before you guys get fired and lose your respect with others!
- Performance reviews anyone?

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

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

Pros – - They hire college grads with potential
- Great people in the office. Really feel like you're in the trenches together.
- Smart people: you will learn a lot
- Great office with a great view.
- Fantastic initial compensation and benefits package
- If you get in with the right group, you're set for life (see con #1)

Cons – - If you don't get in with the main clique or if you anger/annoy any of them, you experience all of the following cons
- No career growth or development. You just get shuffled around with no direction to where they need people (usually the less glamorous teams)
- No positives on the horizon. One of the reasons I had left is that no one around me had seen raises, promotions, or bonuses of any kind for 5+ years.
- Culture is very negative. Very much a thought of "let's just suck it up and do this so we don't get yelled at" instead of "let's do this because it's good business"
- Non IDOL software is extremely buggy and bugs go unfixed for months unless support hammers into development.
- Accountability almost always comes back to support. An issue taken up with management goes to support. Issues in development come from customers to support, back to development, who tries to say that the customer is wrong even if support has verified the issue. Sales reps, on-site consultants, and more- all issues just keep coming back to support.
- Huge turnover. A lot of senior guys who hadn't seen any positives in years left, making it harder to learn or master the products. With only college grads coming in, it's hard to keep experts around.

All that said, it's possible this is all changing due to HP's takeover and executive level changes. So take this with a grain of salt. Make sure this is a job you really want to do before taking the offer or it will hurt your future career.

Advice to Senior Management – I'm aware that the transition to HP is changing things slowly so it may be getting better. But to any still there from Autonomy- good managers reward success, reprimand failure, and shield their team from flak from above. They don't pass the blame and cover their own hide.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Autonomy part-time for more than a year

Pros – Has a benefits package, that's about it

Cons – Bad management, lack of compensation for employee's

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – If you had talent, drive and an ability to adapt you could do well at Autonomy.

Cons – Salary, employee relations and career development for young people were quite bad.

Advice to Senior Management – They got fired or left after the HP acquisition in which they all probably made millions. What can you tell people enjoying millions of dollars aquired as a direct result of their mgmt practices?

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

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

Pros – By and large Autonomy has a talented group of individuals, who with the right structure could turn things around.

Cons – Sales - They hire too many sales people and don't properly train them. The effect is that they are effectively massively unproductive, as they are constantly forced to reinvent the wheel.

Technology - While Autonomy has talented engineers there is no focus and no plan. The result is that everyone goes in a million directions with tactical drivers and no strategic focus (efforts focused on break/fix and not on moving the products forward organically)

Services - The implementation team are largely former presales folks and that hurts the organization as each implementation takes far more resources than competitors in the space.

Management - Biggest issue with the management team is a lack of experience, which when combined with success has created a culture where the wrong policies are ingrained because they are incorrectly associated with that success.

Advice to Senior Management – Sales - Align sales staff with HP selling structure (Regional/Matrix management) and hire less sales people and more sales support (Sales Ops, Solutions Engineers, etc) to make sure they are successful.

Technology - There needs to be product management driving development with short and long term road maps. After all how can we expect progress if the engineers don't know where we should be headed.

Services - Here the autonomy services team should be integrated under the HP/EDS services leadership.

Management - It may sound harsh but the sacking of Lynch, Kanter, Menell, et al was a great moving in the right direction, but it won't be fixed until all of the historic leadership who believe in the "Autonomy Culture" are gone.

Generally 95% of the Autonomy workforce is sticking around to see what HP does integration wise, but once its clear that HP integration isn't happening short term there will be a mass Exodus.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

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

Pros – 1. Technology company.
2. Get to work with some brainy people, get more exposure to innovation.
3. Good reward system for the talented people.

Cons – 1. Facilitate training programs.
2.No Proper appraisal system

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

Current Employee – been working at Autonomy full-time

Pros – Getting paid to arrive in work when i feel like it, play pool or stand around chatting whilst drinking free coffee, having been given any direction in weeks no one seems to know what's going on.

Cons – The departure of Mike Lynch and he vision he was the reason i joined Autonomy.

Advice to Senior Management – Most employees i speak to have already placed their CV's with recruiters.

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