NetApp

The benefits seemed okay (but can't truly compare without outside information). The fitness center is fairly large and nice.

Many good and hard-working engineers are scattered in various areas.

Managers told employees that you need to physically attend all meetings in our functional group, not by con-call, because upper management used physical attendance as a primary indicator of your value. So you learned that appearances were more important than doing real work.

Upper management even told our group that every employee in Sunnyvale has the "opportunity" to attend the quarterly All Hands meetings in person. Really?

Either have coffee and cake while listening to the latest spin on bad numbers, or email the CM to get information on the root cause of this week's failures. I chose emailing, and I got laid off, although I survived for 10 years.

All of management were "yes" people, as other independent-thinking managers quit or were laid off during the prior layoffs.

Recent layoffs were to "change NetApp culture and processes," but the same processes haven't changed, and the towers between Engineering and Operations are still as separate as different companies.

Just do something! Spending time on asking employees what they think the NetApp culture is was a complete waste of time. Employees learn the culture from management's actions, as a child learns from a parent's actions, not words. Employees will learn how to collaborate when they see their managers collaborating with other groups. But they also learn to keep quiet with countering views when your manager tells you to "never challenge your boss that way during a meeting."