Becoming political, culture is degrading - Engineering NetApp Employee Review

2.0
8 Feb 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

+ The culture used to be awesome, really refreshing compared to most other companies. But lately, this is changing quite a bit (see cons). + Compensation is reasonably competitive. + Work is challenging and you get to learn a lot (but depends on the group). Good work usually gets recognized (but again depends on the manager).

Cons

-- Culture is definitely degrading, perhaps due to the effect of a string of layoffs in the last 2-3 years. People are becoming political and trying to protect their jobs, creating overlaps in charters and agenda resulting in a lot of uncertainty for the engineers and managers, e.g., what's happening between ONTAP and Manageability. Already lost a couple of people due to this, and more will follow if not resolved quickly. The leadership needs to address these overlaps and remove the uncertainty by either 1) consolidating into a single group, or 2) redrawing the boundaries between groups to unequivocally clarify charters and agendas. -- Too many TDs and Directors pushing their pet projects (related to the comment above). -- Opportunities for growth are limited, mainly due to slow / no growth in the business as a result of the perfect storm of technology shifts, simplicity, and economics from flash, HCI and cloud. But green shoots of growth are slowly starting to appear, so perhaps there is still room for some optimism.

Explore other reviews about NetApp

5.0
7 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

NetApp is a prestigious company, working for this company will be a great resume boost if you cannot break into top fortune 500 companies. Relatively easy to get into NetApp. Competitive pay.

Cons

Frequent layoffs. Understaffed which could equate to higher expected output.

3.0
9 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Not the worst pay around - Opportunity for advancement if you get the right management - Good financial benefits (ESPP, 401k options, mega backdoor Roth) - The one thing GK is good at is driving up the company stock price. Hope you got yourself some RSUs

Cons

- NetApp hasn't made a new product in 10 years, so you'll be hard pressed to find development work that isn't directly tied to supporting what was built before then. - Very little innovation other than weekend-project-level AI tools - Health and dental benefits are not great - Upper management is completely detached from reality

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