F5 reviews

3.8

72% would recommend to a friend

(1,972 total reviews)
avatar

Francois Locoh-Donou

81% approve of CEO

62% positive business outlook

F5 has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 1,972 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The F5 employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
1.0
Jun 30, 2023

404 Future Success Cannot Be Found

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I almost didn't write this for fear of retaliation. The soul of the company and the pros that we had were mostly removed in the past few years. Recent pro, wellness weekends as a few extra PTO days.

Cons

Employee engagement programs were all but shut down. People who worked across departments were all let go. Internal Promotions were almost non-existent. External hiring added management at all levels who would show up, announce a major change to boost their name and then leave. Compensation did not even try to keep up with the market. 2 years with no raises due to pandemic uncertainty, followed by a "raise" and a cut in RSUs that landed in a wash despite huge cost of living increases at the same time. RTO demands while over 3/4 of employees did not see value in returning. Distributed teams not properly managed by inflexible managers. Unreasonable hours and regular weekend work because no-one felt they could actually log off for a break. I was here for over 5 years, and there was only 1 year we did not have either a major re-org or large layoffs. Layoffs often selected employees who were not redundant forcing others to pick up the slack and learn new skills rapidly. This resulted of course in spreading resources to thin, diminishing meeting SLAs on both systems, and then the employees picking up the slack being judged for not meeting what multiple people were doing before. After years of this, the weight of 5 or more resources were being carried by individual burnt out people who had no hope for improvement or any chance at success. The company has not been releasing products internally instead acquiring other companies to bolster their product lines temporarily while showing no faith in existing engineering teams. Senior leadership would not support the suggestions that were needed to resolve issues, especially with acquired companies. D&I was a meaningful program focused on policy, benefits, and was supposed to offer a path to leadership skills and promotions. Now it is just words. The real programs no longer offer hope to employees and are used for marketing to investors and colleges.

1.0
Sep 20, 2021

Mediocrity Reigns Supreme

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Solid work/life balance - Excellent benefits and vacation allotments - Pays at or above market rate for the most part. Although this may be changing for the worse in the current competitive climate.

Cons

- F5 aspires to be a software company. Hardware people still run the company after acquiring 3 software companies. - Division GMs are fully autonomous meaning from a product perspective there is no singular vision for the company. - For the most part, customers no longer trust or rely on their F5 rep for anything other than filling data center orders. Most reps are blindsided by large modernization initiatives that they either didn’t know about or deliberately turned a blind eye from. Often, these end up targeting F5 as one of the solutions that will not continue at the company once the modernization is complete. - Despite how hardware centric the people and corporate accounting systems are, software is still forced through these systems. This leaves little to no flexibility for customer asks that F5 can’t anticipate because again, no one on the Corp team seems inclined to sell software. - If you’re looking for a job, F5 is a good place to be. If you’re looking to help build your career, not so much. I’d stay away.

1.0
May 26, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Company has good benefits, values, and legacy culture (mostly by team). Stock grants are usually generous for high-performers and two-year quarterly vesting cycle is sweet.

Cons

Marketing org has been overrun by CMO's hires and friends (usually under qualified), creating a toxic environment and inability to advance for those not in the "inner circle." Ever changing goals make success impossible and direction/decisions often come from the top down without any input. Disconnect between leadership and the ones actually doing the work has resulted in a lot of departures lately.

Viewing 46 - 48 of 1,972 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,180 F5 reviews submitted anonymously by F5 employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if F5 is right for you.