Akamai Technologies

Check other posts about trivial things such as free food, snacks, cabs, and stock grants. Family insurance is good as well.

This review is related to my experience in teams in India only. Other countries, specifically the US, may vary.

1. Overall - The technical teams in India are back office. No product development takes place. The CIO team works on stuff that most other companies do.

2. Work - Job descriptions are absolutely HYPED. Most team work involves network support or filling up XML from the product.

3. People - a. Mostly average people who know nothing other than HTTP/DNS, apart from the Akamai products working at a high level, all from training. b. At the same time, very arrogant, especially those who have been around for more than 3 years and have grown only because the company did well. This includes managers as well as directors. c. You are not allowed to challenge a product working, or if you have an idea, it will be shot down within 2 seconds if the person on the other side is not convinced. You won't be allowed to even try it out (even if you did not ask for time other than your regular tasks).

4. Work - Not challenging at all. More than enough if you work 8 hours a day, but in a specific shift. Work is either monitoring with tools or creating an XML. Either is mundane work. In any case, you are not encouraged to do anything beyond prescribed tasks. Be clear that there is no one that designs any products in India. Work from home is not allowed either. By the way, managers do not have long-term strategic initiatives. Never seen them doing much other than Excel reports :)

5. Products - The ones that were designed up until around the 2010s are good. However, there have never been any big product launches lately. This may be because of people's attitudes as mentioned. New startups in the space recently, such as Instart Logic, have come up with fairly innovative products.

6. Interviews - Interview questions and processes are overexaggerated. You have to convince an entire team of people to get hired, like it is some kind of great job. On the other side, I was on the interview panel. It never mattered whether the feedback was a “strong no” or “strong yes.” What matters is whether the candidate is a referral or there is a referral candidate in the pipeline.

7. Compensation - Again, advertised as the best in the industry. It is at best average. Even startups pay way better with better work.

So, to sum it up, if you back yourself to be a very good techie and want to learn new stuff and work with smart, humble people on big, innovative ideas, this is NOT the place for you.