Monotonous & boring, not challenging, little career growth - Engineer Garmin Employee Review

2.0
20 Aug 2013
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Very relaxed and flexible work environment, great benefits, and good work/life balance. Overwhelmingly nice coworkers.

Cons

Garmin was my first job out of college and, based on my interview with them, it sounded like an exciting, innovative place to work -- great for a new engineer. I couldn't wait to dive in. Unfortunately, it fell far short of that initial promise... The work itself was, to put it mildly, boring. There was nothing to make me feel engaged or invested in it. Most projects assigned were either small/inconsequential or rehashes of prior designs. The few new, innovative product designs were left to more senior engineers. Many projects were started and stopped, never seeing completion...especially when Garmin unsuccessfully dipped into the mobile phone market. Felt like it was impossible to grow and develop as an engineer here. Often stuck in minor supporting roles on projects even as you are supposedly "advancing" to higher levels (Engineer II, III, etc.)...which should in theory command more responsibility. All in all, I spent almost 5 years at Garmin, and at the end, felt like, professionally, I advanced little beyond when I first came out of college.

Explore other reviews about Garmin

5.0
30 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They have a great culture.

Cons

I don't have cons to list.

3.0
1 July 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great, and I mean great benefits.

Cons

Poor local culture, everybody is in their own clicks and don't deviate from them. Not a huge amount of office friendliness. Not many team building exercises, and qa gets left out of alot. If you're not a developer, you will have a yard time socially. Coffee is the worst I've had at a company ever. Return to office was not handled right, and the wfh policies were written very vague by a local manager, but what they actually wanted was very specific and was not communicated at all(avg of 1 per month over the course of a year). This lead to a problem where I was denied a wfh request to grieve a dead pet because I used wfh 2 weeks earlier to register a new car ( that I got solely for work commute)

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