National Instruments reviews

Benefits are woefully out of wack in the 3 and 10-year career range. My compensation and benefits are significantly less than my peers who work elsewhere. The company's products and customers are very technical, so folks who have engineering educations often end up doing most business functions (marketing, sales, etc.) at the top, middle, and bottom levels, which can sometimes lead to a lack of both diversity in thought process and demographics. The organizational structure is pretty flat (few levels of management) so most employees have autonomy to make decisions within their roles and teams. This also means that loud voices or long-time employees with loud voices can sometimes be the impetus for organizational change in the wrong direction. NI sells a lot of different products and solutions which means that employees have an opportunity to work on a lot of different projects and serve different audiences. This also means that the company changes organizational structure and focus often. I have had 4 different roles and 6 different managers in 5 years.

My career has stalled and I’ve fallen behind. I’ve only worked on one thing in the years that I’ve been here; while my peers elsewhere seem to constantly be learning new things and using the latest technologies. Nothing I have done here is worth putting on a resume. The laid-back atmosphere is because no-one can move any faster. There’s too much bureaucracy, miscommunication, lack of enthusiasm, and incoordination to make anything happen. This leads to stressful deadlines for tasks that should have been relatively easy and quick to carry out. A lot of stuff gets pushed out or shelved entirely as a result. NI is very resistant to new methods, ideas, etc because either no-one in power has the guts to push it; or they tried a long time ago and it was difficult so they gave up and will never try it again. New CEO and his C-people only care about growth and keeping shareholders happy. The rest of the management has fallen in line with that or left. It’s now a depressing environment with poor morale. I heard a lot of talk about “NI culture” when I came here. NI doesn’t have a culture.