Check Point Software Technologies Marketing reviews

Check Point has a tendency to wear people down. The whole company is micromanaged by the CEO and/or President. Virtually every decision has to approved by one of them. This creates gridlock and high frustration for people who are well-qualified and experienced with independent and/or team-based projects. The Marketing department, in particular, is problematic. Middle managers aren't given the authority to do their jobs, and are at the mercy of ever-changing proclamations from on high that seemingly have nothing to do with solving the problems on hand. Salaries are average to low, and performance reviews and associated bonuses are rewarded on a bell curve, so that an entire team can't be rewarded for a job well-done. Some team member always has to be the scapegoat, which doesn't foster great morale. The C-Level team has several members that verge on or actually are abusive to employees, with verbal rants and public put-downs way more common than average. HR's hands have been tied in addressing that due to the micromanagement from above, and several senior-level people that should have been fired long ago are still there, with valuable mid- or lower-level employees being negatively affected to the point of serious mental distress and/or leaving the company. Opportunities for advancement don't come up often, and instead of promoting from the inside they tend to look outside first. There is a culture of mediocrity, so that truly groundbreaking ideas are often swept away or committee-edited to the point of conservative boringness. Work-life balance doesn't exist. Long hours and weekend work is a given, not to mention round-the-clock international calls.

This is not a marketing driven company by any stretch. Every quarter you will spend half your time justifying your entire existence to Gil personally, who won't bother to actually hear your entire power point presentation through before cutting you off at the middle of slide 1 to harangue you about his theories of marketing. Since you can't spend more than $25k on ANY ONE PO, you are essentially justifying every spend you make to every single banner ad purchase. It's also tremendously convoluted, the purchasing organization is set up like the Soviet government, with instructions to obfuscate and reject purchase orders because they don't like the way the justification is worded. I have an MBA from a top program and more than a decade of experience in my field, and justifying my marketing strategy to a low level clerk (who would then explain it to Gil's cousin, who would then explain it to him and screw it up in the process causing it to be rejected), just grew too exhausting to put up with.