Netflix

Netflix has some great pros. You'll be working with mostly extremely competent people. Dealing with teams within the company is extremely easy, as most people are very helpful and efficient. They pay you a lot of money and give you perks like free food, a paid cell phone bill, and a 401k. This is all great, but for me, the biggest draw is always people. Your team will make or break your experience here, so make sure you know what you are getting into at the interview and don't accept jobs with teams that you don't feel excited about being part of.

The high salary leads some people to ramp up their lifestyles. They then become dependent on being here. This, in turn, creates a culture of fear where people are constantly stressing out that they are "not doing enough" and might be fired any minute. This also extends to the directors of teams. When your management is stressed, it will always trickle down to create a lousy experience for you.

This makes for an extremely toxic environment at times, where teams are often working on similar projects, thus competing against each other to stay relevant, which is just utter idiocy. The high pay ensures that there is way more politicking than would be needed or appropriate in such situations. This, in turn, can have a very demoralizing effect on the peons doing the actual work, who often feel compelled to work on nights, weekends, and public holidays for goals that are often vague, and projects that are often shelved.

The most insidious effect of this is observed when people contemplate taking PTO. Many employees have told me that they weren't able to relax or take as much time off as they needed, as they were constantly wondering what would happen to their jobs and whether or not they were doing enough to "deserve" time off. If you've never felt this, it's a rotten state of mind, and you will feel it quite a bit here.

Many times, I've felt the need to quit the field altogether, but the money and my team make me stay for now, so I'll likely stay till my team changes.

Moral of the story here is:

• You'll get paid a lot.
• You'll also likely be laid off sooner than you expect.
• You'll also likely make a LOT less at your next place.

Adjust for your standard of living appropriately so you can keep your head above the circus fray, and don't get used to the good things.

More communication with your teams is absolutely essential if you want to retain good people, but you don't need a Glassdoor review to tell you that.

Empower your HR teams to instill the idea that taking time off is a healthy part of working here, and no one should feel nervous about taking time off. You will need to say this many times before it becomes part of the culture.

Ensure that teams are not competing against each other, specifically in the Engineering department. We are not here to throw each other off our respective ladders, but to learn and to help the company grow as a result of what we learn here. Cross-collaboration between teams should be of the utmost priority, not working at cross-purposes as is the case with many teams now.

For the most part, this is a good place to be. Make it better and make more of an effort at every level to keep the organization flat. We already have job insecurity; we do not need hierarchy to make it worse.