Akamai Technologies

People are generally okay. No toxic people.

It is a tech company making technology.

• You might be assigned to work on tech that exists only at Akamai while being paid 30% below market rate.

They do not understand that asking employees to lessen their chances of future employment by working only on tech that is not relevant for future jobs is a big ask for quality engineers. Big asks or sacrifices need to be balanced with significant pay. Below-average engineers don't have much to lose, which they have in spades.

• A lot of time is spent dealing with other people's poor communication skills. Few people are good at writing. I am having to type at least twice as many messages for the same outcome as at previous companies I have worked at. There are meetings for everything because people are better at speaking than writing, but because nothing is written down, there is no record of what happened.

• All the engineers above the senior level that I have worked with would not be capable of being at the same level at any FAANG. They often create work rather than enable others to work better, which is a major requirement of a Staff or Principal engineer.

You get what you've paid for. I don't see a way to make things better because there are too many below-average employees. The average of below-average employees is not a below-average employee base. The lack of skill in the employee base compounds into an employee base that is worse than below average.