Syncophancy, complacent, not invented here - Software Engineer Garmin Employee Review

2.0
Jul 21, 2011
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits Many opportunities for Embedded work The facilities are well designed for development (offices, lab areas) Lab and test equipment excellent Job for life if you are complacent

Cons

Tendency to retain senior/middle managers who seem to collect salary but do little else. These same individuals end up with meaningless titles and head up initiatives - read talk shops with delayed execution. When they run out of things to do, new titles created. Titles get invented arbitrarily, reorgs frequent and lack logic. See above. HR is overly staffed with little to do besides organize events and salaries are not competitive. Do not expect to work on software languages and technologies prevalent in the industry Definite not invented here attitude Do not expect cutting edge software development tools

Explore other reviews about Garmin

5.0
May 30, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great work/life balance. Top pay if you're a top performer.

Cons

Can get boring with little opportunity to learn new things.

3.0
Apr 3, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good benefits and work life balance. It's a good culture and I've never worked at a place where your immediate peers are this helpful and pleasant to work with, even across teams and offices. If you want to just come in and do just what is required for your job and go home with the knowledge you have a stable job, this is the perfect place to work. I'd only recommend working here if you just want a job, but don't care about a career.

Cons

There is poor career advancement, especially if you aren't male. Leadership does not care about leading people. The RTO has made working here less appealing. The excuse that you can't collaborate unless you are in the same building makes no sense when you work with people in 6 different countries. It is about control and appearances, all due to incredibly poor senior leadership strategies. The pay is also low and so is the quality of the software you work on. Leadership likes to talk quality, but they like fast and cheap. They will not support you in actual software quality nor implement changes to improve it. The same issues happen over and over without improvement.

8
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