Dolby reviews

3.8

71% would recommend to a friend

(706 total reviews)
avatar

Kevin J. Yeaman

73% approve of CEO

52% positive business outlook

Dolby has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 706 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Dolby employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

706 reviews
1.0
Feb 21, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some very good, cooperative people - mostly those that had been there under the former management (pre-Kevin Yaemon)

Cons

Inability to trust management at most levels. Short-term, finance driven planning by the CEO - exactly the opposite of what Ray Dolby did to build their success.

1.0
Feb 20, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

There is no any good reason to work in Dolby La. Very bad company, Baddest Management, Baddest colleague, Baddest environment:

Cons

1. Engineer in Dolby Lab very busy in Meeting. from 10:00 am to 4:00 pm and then they leave every rush to take Bart or Train to go home 2. Engineer in Dolby Lab tell new comer everything have to ask s'one will help and they don't want you to ask, very conflict. 3. As I know every Laptop in Dolby Lab has the 'Watching' software. They can know what you are doing in real time 4. Some Manager using Meter Watch to monitor what you are doing and how long you working 5. Teaching very poor and want you to finish project in next two hours 6. Don't go to Dolby Lab - worst Management team

3.0
Feb 20, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- 9/80 work schedule - Excellent work/life balance in most teams, although some people really lean toward the life part which might explain a portion of Dolby's sluggish growth. - Incredibly intelligent colleagues with deep industry knowledge and critical thinking skills. - Many interesting and amazing products on the horizon. Being a part of those developments that could be truly game-changing is amazing if we can get them launched and launched well. - The promise and potential of working for a great brand. - Unique perk: employee screenings of first run movies in the best theater (acoustically) in the country.

Cons

- Out-dated culture, heavy on old-school style political maneuvering to the degree that ideas and innovation are generally stifled. If you do happen to bring something solid to the table that a more Machiavellian colleague notices, he will take it for his own and give you little to no credit and probably not fully flesh out. - Lack of mentoring - While you might be surrounded by great minds, you will only get to learn by osmosis even if you ask for mentoring. If you are not already at the top of your game upon hiring, you will be side-lined. There is little opportunity to learn and grow your career, despite any promise you might hold. This cultural aspect also fails to create managers who jump on teachable moments as opportunities to develop their staff and expand on ideas. - These same brilliant minds while "waxing poetic" in highly-intelligent and fascinating discourse and debates of critical thinking and industry expertise often get so bogged down by the political strategies of consensus based decision making that progress is slow (which in tech, spells eventual death). There are few meetings less than 90 minutes and that is often weekly. - Initiative is not only not encouraged or rarely rewarded, but is sometimes actively disapproved of. Honestly, it sometimes seems like one's proclivity for initiative is perceived as "making another look bad" rather than doing what needs to be done for the good of the project. Rolling up your sleeves and digging in as a team is not part of the culture here. - Multiply all of the above x10 if you are a woman and then some. Several women colleagues over the years have left in frustration for having no actual seat at the table and ideas repeatedly being co-opted by male team members. This is as true in the more gender-balanced population of the marketing department as it is in the heavily male-skewed engineering. department.

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Glassdoor has 890 Dolby reviews submitted anonymously by Dolby employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Dolby is right for you.