Not for individual contributors/very poor management - Anonymous employee F5 Employee Review

3.0
14 Jan 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-- Great benefits: family plans for HDHP health are at no monthly cost to the employee -- Work/life balance: flexible schedule and ability to work from home -- Smart individual contributors: most of the people I work with are incredibly smart for their field and want to make improvements and take ownership

Cons

-- Clueless middle management: There are far too many middle managers with no experience with the teams they're managing, making it difficult for individual contributors to make any difference or own anything. -- Lots of politics: Making needed improvements will take at least a year and most of that will be trying to get answers and approvals. There are a lot of plans made leaving little time to get the work done. It takes half the year to make the plan so you only have half a year to execute. -- Management turnover: Several people have had 5+ managers in the last 5 years. When review time comes, this means you never get a full review because each time your manager hasn't had enough time with you. Which equates to very little chances of promotions or raises. --Management ego: Most manager I know have an ego that gets in the way of necessary cross-team collaboration and pressure to get everything done right now with no space to make sure you're doing things right. They want the credit to themselves and will sacrifice quality to get it. -- Sexism: If you are a woman, you will have to work at least twice as hard to prove yourself. You will have less options to advance your career and you may have to deal with sexist comments. All of this is bad news, especially for individual contributors. Unless you're ok with not advancing your career and nothing to add to your resume in exchange for some benefits and work/life balance flexibility.

Explore other reviews about F5

5.0
30 May 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

* I enjoyed the collaborative team culture. Everyone was supportive and willing to help each other. * The work-life balance was good, and the overall working environment was relatively low stress. * I had opportunities to work on large-scale enterprise products and collaborate with cross-functional teams.

Cons

* One area I felt could be improved was compensation growth. As my responsibilities and technical skills expanded, I was looking for opportunities that offered stronger career and compensation progression.

4.0
1 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good benefits and good culture

Cons

Sales compensation changes frequently and randomly

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