VMware is a fun place to be; it's aggressively growing, and it strives to provide a comfortable work environment
Pros
VMware is a fun place to be during the day. The company is growing, and their technology has lots of room to grow and improve. The employees are diverse in age and culture; and everyone is friendly. This is helpful as many of us are new to the Bay Area. Everyone in the company is smart, works hard, and pulls their weight. There's a culture of collaboration; and a degree of freedom in selecting one's work. VMware provides a great set of on-site perks: free soda & other healthy beverages, on-site expresso machines, plenty of healthy snacks, pinball machines, a friday "beer bash", and plenty of games like pool, ping-pong, and foosball tables.
Cons
Although virtualization is an interesting and exciting field; some of the periphery work can be burdensome. Because the stock is volatile; recent hires will become very wealthy before other employees who have stock options that are severely underwater. Some employees underestimate the tangible advantages of competitors' products; like Parallels and Microsoft HyperV. Occasionally, perks are changed without employee involvement; to the chargin of those who chose VMware for a specific perk. A weakness is that VMware's products built by Unix people are difficult for Windows/Mac-centric users; and products built by Windows people are difficult for Unix/Mac-centric users. The cubicle areas can be noisy.
