Opportunism Abounds - Anonymous employee Autodesk Employee Review

2.0
Nov 24, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay is decent and benefits are good, most offices are nice. A core of true believers still remains, people who care about customers, products and each other.

Cons

The true believers are being swallowed up by a crowd of opportunists who are focused only on seeking political favor from senior leadership. Many of these opportunists barely know who their customers are and what they want. A few years ago, Autodesk decided that it couldn't grow and compete by acquiring technology (it long ago gave up trying to innovate organically). Its new strategy, which has been increasingly visible over the past four years, has been to extract more money from customers who can't switch away easily from its products and to reduce costs by systematically cutting "experienced" employees, regardless of performance, and replacing them with interns and new hires. Of course, every company needs to turn over its skill base to stay relevant, but at Autodesk there is a pattern where low performing, highly paid but politically savvy employees are retained while higher performers are let go. What's worse, some of the new hires aren't always top performers (to be fair, some are excellent, but why settle for just some). The environment has become increasingly political, and a company that has always struggled to listen to customers has become practically deaf to them at this point. Oh, and the sabbatical seems like a cool idea, but when you compare it against a standard vacation policy it's not such a great deal.

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5.0
Jun 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good WLB Low Turnover Rates Interesting Projects/Work Full Benefits + 401k

Cons

Medium Pay, Not Amazing Stock Packages

2.0
Jun 12, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The individual contributors, your peers you work with day in and day out are fantastic people! At the IC level, for the most part, it feels like everyone is in the fight together. The work/life balance is good depending on which business unit/team you're aligned with. The benefits are pretty solid, especially the 6 week sabbatical.

Cons

Autodesk moves at the pace of a snail, very slow to take action on anything. Selling is very difficult with all the undocumented approvals, processes, red tape and very few people are willing to actually help! Leadership doesn't care about the people their decisions impact. Feedback is rarely listened to and acted upon. Pay is terrible compared to competitors in this space. Autodesk has embraced a ton of change over the last few years with new marketing, sales and IT leadership and it shows. They are not shy in showing their desire to be the next Oracle at the expense of their people. They are constantly changing tools, processes, people, roles, you name it so you feel like you're under water constantly. Lipstick on a pig.

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