Rackspace Reviews

I worked at Rackspace full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Chance to learn cool technologies and work with awesome individual contributors. Socially conscious company. Provides ways to incorporate volunteer-ism and fitness into the workday. Nice treatment of veterans. Employees reach out to each other and the community in all sorts of ways.

Cons – Though their heart is in the right place, Rackspace could use some work. Rackspace's infrastructure is sorely lacking. The Rackspace culture is manic, dysfunctional, and reeks of cronyism. When management talks about "friends and family," it means they get to hire their incompetent pals without any checks or balances. I need a "Rackers Anonymous" meeting. The place is filled with people with "manager" or "director" in their title, without any clear indication of what they actually do. The best leaders at Rackspace tend to get their wrists slapped for not lining up with "core values" and tend to get lost in the chaos. The least effective leaders are encouraged to perpetuate the "let's talk about this forever without getting anything done" syndrome. Lots of managers use the core values to stifle innovation, speaking out, and risk-taking. For instance, I've seen more than one person get ousted for speaking up in meetings, for being innovative and proactive, for actually getting work done, or for being a self-starter. Rackspace promotes "group think" - if you don't line up with the ineffectual way they do business, you are accused of not conforming to core values or being a team player. They claim to value fanatical support - meaning, employees should feel empowered to do whatever it takes to do a great job - however, the culture disempowers employees and forces them to shape up (to the core values) or ship out. Rookie-O - a weeklong indoctrination camp disguised as an orientation - gives you a good idea of what's ahead. Lots of red tape for a place that claims to eschew it. Thank god that San Antonio is a warm place because the emperor is definitely naked.

Advice to Senior Management – Revisit the vague and subjective core values. Instead, start valuing experienced and competent technical contributors and leaders over pontificating do-nothings. I've never been at a company where technical contributions are so sorely ignored. And, I've never heard so much jargon in my life (especially in the RED organization). Typical management speak at Rackspace includes phrases like, "circling back," "cadence," "learnings," "thought leaders," "mentoring moments," "leadership sponsor," "reach out," "rockstar," and, of course, "fanatical." It's telling that the highest award at Rackspace is a straitjacket.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Rackspace full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – - Amazing People (Rackers are some of the best in industry)
- Awesome CEO. Lanham is fantastic
- Great culture and work environment
- You are given the opportunity to do your best every day
- Wonderful place to learn and be part of something great

Cons – - Abysmal pay bands. So far below the industry averages, its often incomprehensible
- Cost cutting in the wrong areas (facilities, healthcare, etc.)

Advice to Senior Management – Please pay your people what they are worth. Its one of the easiest ways to keep your best and brightest!

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

I have been working at Rackspace full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – I'm a technical employee. If you work in a customer-facing position, you can learn in months what would likely take years at a normal employer. Most of my colleagues over the years at the Rack have been very friendly, and openly shared knowledge with me.

I see other reviewers complaining about pay, but I know that my pay is absolutely fair. If you are good at what you do, work hard, and know how to sell yourself, you will be generally be rewarded for it. My income is not that far from being double what it was back when I started at the company, 5 years ago.

The company also promotes and hires quite a bit from within. I've been promoted twice to various technical roles based on my interest and the company having faith in me.

Most of the time I feel a bit spoiled... but in a good way... and that gives me incentive to make sure I do my part.

If you're thinking of working at the company, make sure you get decent starting pay. If you are insistent, and in demand, you will have some leeway here. Try to get a good feel for the team and your manager. I know that's a tough order when you don't even work there, but be creative.

Cons – There is a lot of dead-weight around, which is compensated by the true talent at the company.

Some of the managers at the company should not be managers. But to be fair, I've really only had 1 bad one out of the 4 I've had so far. I've heard some bad stories though.

I think the fanatical culture stuff that is imbued upon new employees is a little over the top.

Advice to Senior Management – Add a real tuition reimbursement program to our benefits, and constantly work to improve company benefits. A hit to the bottom line is minor compared to the talent we lose each year- so we must try harder to keep them.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Rackspace full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Rackspace has a strong sense of culture and is a very open and friendly place to work. People of all roles are very approachable and willing to assist.

Cons – Sometimes the feeling of being a slightly younger tech company (12 years old) can show. There are a couple isolated departments where it feels like some outside influence would be very helpful for providing direction.

Advice to Senior Management – Overall the management is doing a fine job of building a good tech company with engaged employees. Keep our focus on culture and engagement to keep people happy and in roles longer. I do worry about compensation not being on par with other companies as well as fringe benefits lacking in comparison to other big tech companies in the same metro areas as Rackspace.

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

I worked at Rackspace full-time for more than a year

Pros – -Good Training
-Good place to start
-Rapid growth
-Lots of room for progression as a Tech
-Secure job, no redundancies

Cons – -Management dont listen to line-workers
-Constantly coerced into overtime due to company growing fast and difficulty hiring.
-Slightly lower salary than competitors.
-Bad shift rotas
-Sales oversell solutions, way more than customers need, they are too incentivised by commision

Advice to Senior Management – -Pay your employees more to reduce churn
-Less middle management
-Dont overwork employees with overtime

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

I worked at Rackspace for less than a year

Pros – Good pay considering the living expense in San Antonio. Dev ppl are nice. They really focus on their tasks and are willing to help you out if you have trouble in your work.

Cons – Too disorganized. Everything is in a mess compared to big companies in the market. They have a long long way to go to be a great company, if they know what they should do.

Advice to Senior Management – The company needs a lot of talented ppl, not just a small group. So consider higher educated ppl as well!

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Rackspace full-time for more than a year

Pros – - Outtings which are pretty decent but it really depends on your team lead who may or may not put any effort/thought at all into it.
- Free soda/fruit
- Some amazing coworkers who are very knowledgable
- Flexible hours
- If you can survive you'll gain a ton of valuable technical skills

Cons – Lets start from the beginning. Rackspace will try to brainwash you through "Rookie-O". You'll see many who will genuinely drink the kool aid and think the company is heaven sent. It's hard to describe rookie o other than a week-long celebration of the company/weird team building/core value/strength and weakness finding seminars. They will particularly preach the strength and weakeness part. Some of your fellow new hires will expect almost psychic readings from the founders about how their particular strengths will apply to them in the future. The funny thing is I've never seen anyone use or mention it after Rookie-O.

Next, you're out of rookie-o. I hope you like working at a call center if you're on the support (IT) side of the game. That's pretty much what you're in for. Prepare yourself to be logged into your phones even though many of your co-workers won't be. You're going to be answering phone calls all day. When you're not on the phone (this never happens unless you log yourself out) you will be greeted by a neverending ticket queue. Training will be non-existant unless you work in sales which seems to have endless options. New products will constantly be introduced but don't expect to get training on that either. If you wonder why you aren't trained on anything you'll be told to just be 'fanatical' and it's 'trial by fire' or that's just the way it's always been..aka they don't care enough to set you up for success. Staffing will be constantly too low which will burn many out. Management will claim the yhave a hard time finding candidates. Maybe that's true, but I've also heard frequent talk about underpaid salaries so.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop reorganizing everyone every few months. Get some training for rackers. Staff up.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Rackspace full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Loved my co-workers. Liked the old culture better.

Cons – Hated the politics and good ol boys club. Buddies got promoted based on being buddies not by their abilities or competence. Never ending restructuring of the sales org, increasing quotas, less leads, fewer accounts Sales leadership incompetence.

Advice to Senior Management – To the C levels: Take a close look at your VP and Mid Level management staff and ask yourself are they the right players and how did they get into those positions? Are they bringing game changing leadership and ideas or merely going through the motions. Scrutinize the Q12 management surveys.
Do not accept mediocrity.

VP's and Mid Level managers: Pay attention to your MVP's. Respond to your Q12's with positive change. Cultivate the best from your teams.

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

I have been working at Rackspace full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Excellent values, a great culture, and an awesome leadership team all demonstrate that Rackspace cares about its employees and its customers. The company promotes ownership from within the company by empowering its Rackers to do the right thing for our customers, and by offering equity grants/options/discounts as a reward for performance.

Cons – Sometimes our senior leadership sends conflicting priorities based on their own incentives, due mostly to a lack of coordination between them. Our "time off" policy has improved in recent years, but is still sub-par. Several teams have a distinct lack of accountability toward completing projects other teams rely on. Finally, there is the occasional bad manager who really forgets to respect our culture. These are all relatively rare occurrences, however.

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

I have been working at Rackspace full-time for more than a year

Pros – Culture, freedom to explore technically

Cons – Not much -- I am very happy here having worked at many, many places

Advice to Senior Management – I like what they are doing

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