Good (not great) place to work - Senior Software Engineer NetApp Employee Review

4.0
Feb 21, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good work/life balance. There is a culture of transparency from the upper management. Very good benefits. Lots of training opportunities. The upper management seems dedicated to making the company a great place to work.

Cons

Pay is average or below, advancement is very slow. As an engineer, it appears that the sales and support organizations are running well, but product development seems very broken. Huge amounts of unnecessary process burden all aspects of the product development cycle, from product definition down to the level of the individual code check-in. This results in some of the lowest productivity per engineer that I have witnessed. The engineers are working hard, but it is very difficult for them to get anything done. The upper management seems to want to change this, but the deep layers of middle management are so risk-averse that they seem to be locked in stasis until an EVP commands action. The HR policies are stuck in the 80's, with an oppressive annual review process (complete with annual goals), stack ranking, and a black-hole applicant tracking system that seems to grade every applicant unworthy of consideration. For those rare individuals that do get interviews (usually because the hiring manager bypassed HR), the risk-averse culture demands multiple rounds of interviews. I know of people hired only after running a gauntlet of 15-20 individual interviews, organized into 3 or 4 rounds.

Explore other reviews about NetApp

5.0
Jun 18, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good work life balance (in my team)

Cons

Leadership is bad, stay away!

3.0
Jun 26, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Amongst the top companies in the data storage industry = company stability.

Cons

If you'd ask me a year or 2 ago, I would have given the company 5 stars. But, as with most tech companies now, they've started to follow the trend of return to office, regardless of logic. There's little to no room for exceptions and the company would rather sacrifice productivity regardless if they know the hardships for people living in metros (one way commute to the NY or SJC office can take 2 hours one way!) - that and there's no commuter benefits. You have to pay out of pocket and live in fear of not receiving your bonus if you miss the "thrive together" quarterly requirements.

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