Equinix reviews

Right, where to begin. Firstly I’ll start with addressing the title of this review, ‘if the face fits’ seems to sum up the company and team rather well. There are HUGE levels of favouritism within Equinix, which mainly is what caused me to become a ‘former’ employee but also the bullish vindictive managerial behaviours also drove me out. Favouritism can be seen across the board, from upper management prioritising specific teams and individuals right down to the personnel actually in some of the teams. I wholeheartedly believe that if you aren’t willing to become a company robot by living and breathing Equinix and adopting their controlling, vindictive behaviours then you will not progress at Equinix regardless of skill set. For example, there are people in certain positions that shouldn’t be, ‘engineering managers’ who have never been engineers themselves, how does that work? Management will actively seek out some individuals they just don’t like and use any tiny negatives against them. Positive feedback isn’t a thing at Equinix, it may appear in the monthly team meetings but behind the scenes managers will do all they can to find negatives to use against people in the annual pay rise and bonus. Equinix actually adopt a company value called ‘speak up, step up’ but best believe if you engage in that value then you will be penalised one way or another. Managers do not seem to care about accusations of favouritism taking place. Different treatment is often dealt out depending on who you are, what level you are and to what extent you are liked. If you express a negative opinion in the way the managers operate, then that will be used against you. GPS goals based reward system is utter nonsense. It seems you can write whatever you wish in there but fundamentally it seems as though the annual rewards are based on how much they like or dislike you and how often you raise issues with their management style or the actual core business. If they want you out then they’ll make it known in the annual GPS rewards. Quarterly anonymous pulse surveys were almost comedic. Barely any of the questions in the survey would be relatable to the engineering teams. The questions were largely just corporate nonsense. The survey was never really taken seriously anyway, writing any constructive criticism in the survey would just be overlooked and the favourite way for managers to respond to criticism is ‘that doesn’t happen, this person is just being difficult and negative’. You would find many people to write similar things which would tell me that there’s a general view or consensus that those things need addressing? But no, not according to the managers. It was very much a ‘us and them’ mentality between the engineers and managers. Cost cutting de motivates employees which only seems to impact lower level teams and employees. No doubt senior management will probably be flying around the globe in business class seats expensed fully on SAP concur all whilst back in Slough there is an emphasis on reducing the weekly breakfast delivered to the IBX’s. Multi billion dollar company by the way and they’re worried about bacon rolls. Overtime being cut, team building events being cut, increasing the temperature in data halls to save energy and money… these things and more just seem detrimental to the lower level individuals. The impact of budget control slides downhill, the senior managers on 6 figure salaries aren’t impacted the same way lower level employees are. Equinix conduct mental health charity events, offer an employee assistance programme and also provide wellbeing days given to employees as a company shutdown in support of mental health awareness, however if you are off with an illness or even paternity leave, then that will be used against you in the GPS annual rewards (bonus and pay rise). ‘We cannot be seen to reward time off’ is a statement often used by the management teams. In my opinion it’s not about rewarding it, it’s about treating people equally and not penalising people for things that is also impacting their daily lives. Are employees really meant to feel valued if they are financially impacted during a health crisis? In my opinion equal pay isn’t exemplified and management will threaten disciplinary action against those who discuss salary with their colleagues. This is against the Equality Act 2010. The same managers also believe that the company policy advises employees not to discuss salaries and if employees are found to do so then disciplinary action would follow. This just gives off controlling managerial behaviour I think. Company strategies and ‘global ops meetings’ usually contain the predictable big worded corporate nonsense that in no way relates to the lower level teams on the data centre floor. I don’t think senior management actually understand what it is the engineering teams do and how fundamental they are to the business which in turn leads to the teams being overlooked. Rival companies offer significantly greater employment packages and poach people from Equinix. It’s as if Equinix is actually a stepping stone to progress to higher roles externally not internally. College of Equinix it feels like! Engineering teams are always in conflict with one another. Technical issues within the infrastructure are raised by engineers but some often are not acted upon and the issues are then overlooked.