Arista Networks

If you have lots of drive and initiative, this is a great place for you. The open environment and helpful, talented colleagues will help you get where you desire to be much faster than many other places.

There are very few politics. The leaders are great engineers themselves. You get free parking for you and your friends when Levi Stadium has an event.

The leaders are engineers. Sometimes they seem to spend a bit too much energy on not-so-important engineering problems, which I don't see why they cannot delegate, and too little energy on problems that will make the environment better, to motivate people better, to empower people, etc.

The leaders also seemed to have some inabilities to push an agenda, and as a result, had to rely on launching campaigns too often, especially lately. This makes it harder to push the next time.

Many years ago, it was probably true that all engineers were all-around. As the company grows, these all-around engineers are still encouraged, which I think is wrong. It's better to encourage depth over breadth. An engineer might get rave feedback if he/she attempts something totally not in his/her area, and to some degree of success; yet for someone who focuses in some single area and gets to some great depth, his/her only reward is to deal with more mess in that area.

Another example: an engineer performing a non-engineering duty may get recognized and peer-bonused, but why cannot HR step up and leave the engineers focused AND recognize better engineering work?

Over the last few years, the culture definitely lost a great bit.

What kills you is often what once brought you great success. What were once the great things about Arista (culture, self-drive, openness, Areview, to name a few) may no longer be, and might even be the wrong thing to do with growth and a very different set of people. What distinguishes great leaders from the rest is their ability to adapt to changes and, more importantly, think ahead of the changes.