Guidewire

I feel this company is only successful because of our top-level leadership.

Great team mentality and team feeling, like we are a football team with the best coach. That's a hilarious analogy because I've never played football, but I guess some of us get to experience what that winning, fighting spirit would feel like now, in a geekier way. Personally, I find it incredibly satisfying.

I don't feel micromanaged. A strong feeling of respect and trust in our leadership and the gals and dudes who manage guys like me only strengthens that feeling. It's a great change from previous scenarios where there was a "hate the boss" mentality. It's refreshing and makes it easier to focus on your work and goals instead of drama.

I feel this company is only successful because of our top-level leadership. Too many changes in lower-level management. Stop trying to hire women just to even out the numbers and be politically correct. Hire the person who will do the job best.

Women are a great part of our team, but sometimes it feels like management is following a pie chart to "even out the herd." Then, inevitably, a change has to be made down the road because they just aren't good enough or have the right technical or people skills for the position. Just hire the right person for the job; it's that simple.

Sometimes it will be a man, sometimes it will be a woman, sometimes they will have long hair, short hair, tanned skin, blue skin. Let's just focus on the outcomes instead of the aesthetics.

This is one theme at Guidewire that is annoying to everyone, although nobody can say it in the eye-roll-worthy times we are in. I realize this issue is probably everywhere and would be totally inappropriate to express anywhere other than an anonymous review. But there it is.

Don't be so mousey and politically correct; the focus should be on the success of the team and therefore the company, not pleasing the pie chart, a personal vendetta, or the imaginary PC police who may be secretly judging. Just hire and keep the good people, and the rest will weed themselves out when they can't keep up.

Also, while I'm at it, whoever designed this review format at Glassdoor is a knob. Pros/cons/advice. It forces you to break it up in a way that gives people less helpful info.

Even though I'm much lower on the food chain and can't speak from much direct connection, I can say that the general feeling here at my level is that the CEO leads and delivers the collective vision in a way that most of us feel effectively holds the culture and our results together better than any other key feature of the company's operations.

I have worked for big, household-name tech companies in Silicon Valley, but the respect, loyalty, and dedication found here are incomparable.

Every group will have its whiners and people acting out of insecurity (applying to both men and women), but the larger collective at GW is a group of highly compatible and driven people. We are a team that wants to win, and it's a good feeling to be a part of it.

I highly recommend this place (especially the San Francisco and Ireland offices – several friends working there love it) for highly skilled and driven developers.

This is not a whiny, mopey, soft-shelled millennial environment; it's a strong and ambitious environment of intelligent, like-minded humans on the same mission, with excellent values and work/life balance. I hope to stay for years to come and grow with GW.

My only "advice" is to focus on broader success. Stop sweating the small stuff and focus on the big things that we have in front of us!

We can do this. I know I speak for at least my immediate handful of co-workers and friends here.