I will admit that there are some spectacular positives about working at NVIDIA. The benefits are top-notch, the stock is promising, the support during this pandemic has been fantastic, and the vision for the future is bright. On top of it all, the company is led by a true visionary, who is compassionate and genuinely cares for his employees. Unfortunately, that quality leadership does not trickle down to lower-management.
Structurally, NVIDIA boasts about being a “flat organization,” where all thoughts, ideas, and suggestions are heard and implemented. While this rings true across several teams, I have not been fortunate enough to experience this myself.
The lower-mid management here is astonishingly toxic. Of course not all, but many managers solely focus on promoting their favorite employees and ways to get a promotion themselves. The only way you’ll be promoted and recognized for your hard work is if you loudly kiss up to the right people, play into the political games, and keep any complaints or suggestions for improvements to yourself. Management heavily relies on their personal relationships or feelings towards individuals in order to dictate who gets recognition and opportunities. Want a promotion? Ask them to lunch. Get little gifts for them. Chit-chat about frivolous things, such as exercise classes or shopping. I’ve seen many quality, hard-working employees get overlooked despite dedicating hours of overtime or going above and beyond, simply because they refuse to play into the game and are not the ‘ideal employee,’ according to whatever the manager has in mind.
And to be quite honest, that ‘ideal employee’ is NOT a person of color. As mentioned before, management has biases towards people who look a certain way, dress a certain way, speak a certain way, have certain hobbies and interests…I’m sure you can read between the lines. If you’re a diverse candidate, they will want you to join to help their pitiful diversity numbers, not because they will value or honor what you have to bring. They will smile and nod at your suggestions, just to tuck them away in favor of the opinions of the ones they actually like and respect.
Another alarming red flag that I’ve seen has been witnessing MULTIPLE work-place bullies be praised for their “passion” to their role, when in reality, all they’ve actually done is steamroll over others, throw folks under the bus, and cover it all up by using pretty words to win management’s favor. It’s disgustingly obvious, and although those same people have been addressed to management AND HR *multiple* times, all that results is them getting a light slap on the wrist and a 15-minute talk for formalities purposes. And then a few months down the line, you’ll see that same employee get promoted or converted to full-time, with praises adorned.
Speaking up, or standing up for yourself or others, only yields a target being placed on your back, and being gossiped about by the very same toxic people and management. I’ve witnessed numerous managers gossiping about their own employees as if this is some high school popularity contest. All of the injustice wears down any employee who gathers the courage to try and make a positive change, and leads to them becoming jaded and giving up on any hope that the situation will turn for the better.
Work-life balance is non-existent. No, they will not tell you to work overtime, but you will be praised for it if you do. This leads to a nasty cycle of employees doing extra work (like they see everyone else doing) because they think it’s the norm, or will be what gets them praises as well. My suggestion is to just do your work within normal business hours, and clock out completely if you can. No matter how hard you may work, you won’t get promoted unless you’re your manager’s favorite, anyway.
Perhaps among all the numerous praises flooding NVIDIA’s company reviews here on Glassdoor, this will just be seen as a “bitter” employee airing out their grievances. I’m certain that HR/management will see it this way. But I assure you, folks here are either in silent agreement, jaded to it all, or part of the problem.
