Great products and people, but not good enough management - Software Developer Autodesk Employee Review

3.0
Oct 16, 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

1. Great people There are many excellent senior employees around, including some pretty renowned graphics experts in both industrial and academic fields. Also, most senior employees are very proficient in software development. 2. Excellent work life balance Working here is great pleasure. you should be able to enjoy many events that autodesk holds, and you'll love hanging out with your co-workers for sure. 3. Best employer for new graduates Autodesk has a very nice mentor mechanism that helps new graduates with everything s\he should know and grasp. New graduates can learn quite a lot that will benefit for her\his whole career. This is the best thing that I can think of about Autodesk.

Cons

1. Politics EVERYWHERE After you get more comfortable with your work and wanna a further development, I'm telling you it is definitely NOT a smooth experience. You have to tackle the complex politics in office. You need spend quite a lot brain cycles and efforts to please your manager, and your co-workers. After time, you'll find you cannot enjoy your work as before, because you would probably be challenged by ones those think you've threatened their positions. 2. Unbalanced management structure This may explain #1. One manager, or architect, controls everything of your work. If you are not getting along with her\him\one of them, you are done. Change a team then. There's nothing you can do with it. Nothing in management is balanced.

Explore other reviews about Autodesk

5.0
Jun 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good WLB Low Turnover Rates Interesting Projects/Work Full Benefits + 401k

Cons

Medium Pay, Not Amazing Stock Packages

2.0
Jun 12, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The individual contributors, your peers you work with day in and day out are fantastic people! At the IC level, for the most part, it feels like everyone is in the fight together. The work/life balance is good depending on which business unit/team you're aligned with. The benefits are pretty solid, especially the 6 week sabbatical.

Cons

Autodesk moves at the pace of a snail, very slow to take action on anything. Selling is very difficult with all the undocumented approvals, processes, red tape and very few people are willing to actually help! Leadership doesn't care about the people their decisions impact. Feedback is rarely listened to and acted upon. Pay is terrible compared to competitors in this space. Autodesk has embraced a ton of change over the last few years with new marketing, sales and IT leadership and it shows. They are not shy in showing their desire to be the next Oracle at the expense of their people. They are constantly changing tools, processes, people, roles, you name it so you feel like you're under water constantly. Lipstick on a pig.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All