Accept offers with caution. Excellent CEO, bad middle management.
Pros
Excellent growth . Excellent product portfolio. Excellent CEO. Pat Gelsinger the CEO has done an awesome job of taking over the reigns of the company a few years ago and completely turning it around. The stock price has more than quadrupled under his leadership. He has acquired many startups and successfully integrated them into the VMWare product portfolio and eco system. Hats off to him for creating wealth for the employees, for the owners (EMC and now DELL) and for the investors. One of the finest CEO in the Silicon Valley.
Cons
Along with these product acquisitions, this company has also acquired managers and middle management who have no idea of what management is. There is no one culture at VMWare. There are as many cultures as the number of startups acquired and the managers of these startups are free to treat their teams as they want. HR is very weak in this company and they are not for you. They are for the managers ... dont rely on them. I had a short stint at one of these acquired startups called Velocloud. Incompetent management, very high attrition rate. Lot of senior engineers leaving the group. Those who stick around are there to vest their stocks. The founders thinks of themselves to be semi god who will punish you if you decide to leave their kingdom. Their technology stack will teach you nothing. Accept their offer if you cannot find a job somewhere else. Most of these startup managers lack sympathy and empathy and will not hesitate to show you their powers and make you feel that you are a POS compared to them. Dont be fooled by the "100 Best Companies to Work" or "Top paying company" marketing or the campus. It is actually an average paying and a very weak middle management company. Shop around, I am confident you will get a much better offer and a lot better culture, work environment and work life balance. I know people who were offered twice the package they were making at VMWare.
