Guidewire

Despite the title, it is a good place to work if you fit the following profile:

• In product development
• Can grow your career on your own, without help.
• You highly value your family or social life, so the flexible low-pressure environment is attractive.
• Want to have smart people working with you as peers.

Read more about this in other reviews.

While our CEO, in direct interactions, treats us with respect, he does not enforce this with his VPs and Directors. Therefore, company culture and values vary highly from department to department.

We are clearly valued based on our role, which makes sense in some regard. Due to inconsistent values and culture, however, this plays out as an extreme here. The lowest paid roles are valued at nearly zero. Stock may be non-existent. So, you may want to consider working as a sales clerk at your nearest mall instead.

Management training has started recently, but they aren't too far along, so don't expect help from management generally. Providing career growth is still on the backlog and is not yet a serious priority for HR.

Why does this matter? Because Guidewire generally hasn't invested in career growth; they don't know what they have. So, as they need more specialists, they hire them in and lay off the employees that want to grow but haven't had any guidance. Rinse, repeat.

As stated before, this varies by department.

Our CEO and VPs are generally not experienced people managers and don't always realize the impact their decisions make on their teams.

This all varies widely by department. Product development is a great place to work! I don't know about Sales or Professional Services. If you are both non-technical and non-customer facing, though, seriously consider other opportunities.

Consider the environment you would want to work in, and then strive to create that for everyone. You may have to pay for a better work environment, but it will pay you back many times over when most of your employees can feel good about working here!