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VMware reviews

4.4

86% would recommend to a friend

(10,839 total reviews)
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Raghu Raghuram

78% approve of CEO

59% positive business outlook

VMware has an employee rating of 4.4 out of 5 stars, based on 10,839 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The VMware employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Informationstechnologie industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

11K reviews
2.0
Dec 26, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great product that you can believe in, opportunity to work on many different projects and in many different areas. Some very smart coworkers. Great green building and few cubes.

Cons

Senior management has basically ignored the last 50 years or so of management best practices. Discussion and rigorous thinking are basically discouraged -- if you can't yell it out in two sentences you are cut off. Decisions are mostly only top down -- sr management likes to give orders and commands but doesn't like listening to employees or customers. Finance and HR are staffed with mostly incompetent employees. Planning is dysfunctional so everything is a last minute fire drill. It is a fire drill culture so burn out and attrition are high. Sr management is mostly tone deaf to both employees and customers (partners are treated fairly well) so sr management is basically clueless as to why attrition is high and new products are not selling. The lack of listening and discussion has allowed some monumentally bad business decision to proceed.

4.0
Dec 24, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The innovation that this place delivers can't be matched anywhere in the world right now. We're rapidly creating a new industry, with new problems and opportunities, partnerships, and customers. That creates a level of dynamism that you won't see in existing product spaces (e.g. social networking, enterprise software, etc.). Think of this, VMware is building a new OS....and people are using it. Linux, Apple and others have tried but haven't gotten nearly as far. Combine that with some excellent benefits (401K match was great until it was suspended) and ESPP and it's generally worth the effort to stick around. If making cool, new technology that people will pay for is your thing, there's no place I'd rather be.

Cons

Its a startup with all the problems of a company that grew up too fast. I've seen this story before (as we all have lived through it, I'm sure). It gets big, communication breaks down between groups, there's no formal process for say product planning or structured sharing between big teams (like engineering and product management). Of course we have wikis but we also have sharepoint and a host of other mechanisms. And as you grow big 2 things happen: - you attract less than spectacular talent (people are mediocre otherwise there wouldn't be an average) - the smart people get annoyed when stupid people or anyone the don't know, gets in their way == Politics! You expect it and when you're small you can handle it because everyone is focused on their goal. When you get big, everyone wants to go home on time and stop working insane hours, especially when you have less and less personal vest that makes up a significant part of the company (my options will not be affected by my work, likely it will be affected by the most mediocre person's work).

1.0
Dec 23, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Brilliant engineers and product people; cool products. Super smart people. Startup ambience. Some rising stars in product marketing but much dead wood at top.

Cons

Inept, disorganized senior management. Business logic often lacking. Some really awful senior management-- political, flaky, unfocused. Diane G's departure was a huge step forward but many more are needed. Engineers rule the roost; business folks suffer.

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