Solid Midwest Company | Great Products | Meh pay
Pros
THE PEOPLE! My team has become a little family to me even though I've never met any of them in person yet. Great WLB though YMMV based on your team. Only worked late-night hours or weekends twice in 2 years & both times were personal choices that my manager tried to talk me out of. Love the fitness/wellness wearable product space. Really interesting data to dig into & feels good to support products that help people live happier & healthier lives. Really great 401k match (although Garmin's contribution vests over 5 years). Great medical - covers my wife and I under a HDHP/HSA at absolutely no cost to me. Garmin also contributes to your HSA annually. Big emphasis on career goals & helping you achieve them. Received 2 cost-of-living adjustments that seem to happen around June, though, I'm not sure that everyone receives them. Huge organization - can likely jump teams and do something completely different if you wish.
Cons
The pay is okay-to-good for the Midwest region - not competitive at all anywhere else. Small (~3%) annual raises based on merit. Things tend to move quite slowly at Garmin. Hybrid RTO: 3 days in-office, 2 days WFH. HR swears that there are no exceptions for permanent WFH....unless you've been with the company for a while but they don't talk about that. If you live within 200(!) miles of an office, policy states you MUST go in. Career progression is quite slow - need a minimum tenure of 5 years AT Garmin to be promoted from a SWE II to a Senior SWE. Culture is a bit conservative in the way that the company is a bit "old-school" & really values structure/processes. Not necessarily a bad thing, but might not vibe with some people. For the ambitious - you can easily slow down here & get complacent while you wait for your 401k match to vest or for a promotion.
