Pros: Maybe a good company for freshers.

Cons: I have never been as unhappy with my career as I am with Arista. There's a constant pressure with no clarity on performance year on year. The compensation policy is stock-driven. Years may go by without an iota of appreciation. Even though they claim that stock price appreciation is as good as a hike, when it comes to stock refresh, the number of stocks awarded is so low that salary could fall below what you joined at. The old-timers have created an environment where much of the time is spent in meaningless discussions, thereby reducing the output of engineers and thus degrading their performance. The old-timers would follow one ideology today, and when you propose anything on that same ideology tomorrow, they'd fight it tooth and nail. It's a confusing place. Management is defensive of these folks. They don't realize that continuing this behavior for a long time would harm the product. The root of the issue is Areview, where peers review and rank each other. Everyone wants to be more involved in discussions to get more Areviews for themselves, even if they have nothing meaningful to contribute. If management is not happy with an Areview ranking provided by an engineer to their favorites, they'd ask you to change it. Managers do not have any people management skills. They seem to be biding their time until retirement, as they have made enough money in the IPO and now no longer care about an engineer's career or the company's product. Layoffs are done secretly based on Areview rankings, which are anyway skewed to benefit old-timers. There's a lot of discrimination within the organization. They'd cry if you need work from home for a few weeks for personal reasons, whereas they have allowed directors to be permanently WFH to take care of their families. Some employees create ruckus in chat groups if others take WFH. The politics is depressing. This place has made me sad. On top of that, there's no real skill enhancement because they use a proprietary language, TACC. This place is not meant for experienced folks. You will always be an outsider here, a second-class citizen.

Pros: Good culture. Good culture. Good culture.

Cons: No such cons. No such cons.

Pros: Bleeding-edge work. There are many opportunities to innovate in the datacenter switching space, especially if you work on SDN. Very smart, knowledgeable engineering team. I've learned a lot during my time here. Great work culture. No problems with working from home. Helpful, approachable colleagues. Managers don't micromanage. I'm given a choice of projects rather than being assigned one. There’s a “just do it” attitude - anyone can pick up anything that they think needs improvement and make it better. The focus is on building great products. Switching teams to work on something different is a breeze. Free snacks on every floor. Very good work-life balance. I’ve hardly ever worked on weekends. PTO policy is quite generous. Best development environment I've worked in. Version control wrappers, a custom programming language, well-thought-out software architecture, and automated testing make coding, browsing code, integrating, and testing hassle-free. Excellent place for fresh grads looking to build system software coding and design skills for the future.

Cons: Pre-IPO stock options were very attractive, but salaries and benefits have remained well below the industry average, even post-IPO. Pay hikes are rare. There is no 401k matching. Refresher stock grants are minuscule compared to the initial grant. The bonus payout is low, as it’s a percentage of the depressed base salary. There is no target percentage, so employees don't have an idea what they will be paid. The criteria for determining bonus payouts isn't made clear to employees. There is a pretty high attrition rate after pre-IPO stock grants vest because of the steep drop in total compensation. Career paths are not well defined, and the opacity of the review process is difficult to deal with. Engineer levels are kept confidential, so it's hard to know when or if you are making progress. When asked for specific input on how to grow into larger roles, management gives very broad feedback. Also, the flat organization structure makes it very hard to move from individual contributor roles to people management. There is some risk that the company's growth will be hurt by ongoing litigation. Certain important green card documents are withheld from H1 employees. Although it can be worked around, it is an unnecessary inconvenience.