Guidewire reviews

4.1

78% would recommend to a friend

(1,472 total reviews)
avatar

Mike Rosenbaum

91% approve of CEO

70% positive business outlook

Guidewire has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 1,472 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Guidewire employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.6 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
4.0
Dec 2, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Guidewire is a pretty special place. Great technology, a lot of people who really care about building software that works, and a lot of practicality. Bullsh*t doesn't fly here: there is a lot of skepticism around things that make other organizations starry-eyed. Pragmatic applications of unit testing is a good example: we test much better than most organizations, but we recognize there isn't a silver bullet out there, and testing is no substitute for good architecture. We also don't let pure architects exist: if you've got an opinion on something you better damned well be writing code for it. Best crew I've ever worked with.

Cons

We do roll a lot of our own technologies. That can be bad if you want to add the latest J2EE acronyms to your resume. But if you are a general technologist, it is a pretty fun environment. We've got our own langauge, web layer, OR layer, etc. All of it is done pretty well, when compared with the usual J2EE garbage, anyway. We are also tribalizing a bit as we get larger. Probably not much that can be done about that.

5.0
Dec 7, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Guidewire is full of talented people. Engineering, Sales and Services all excel at creating great products and delivering to customers. Best of all it feels like everybody here is working together toward a common goal. We have a flat corporate hierarchy and little or no office politics. Your bosses always know what's going on. Unlike most companies they can know more than many of the workers. There is a culture of openness from the executive level down so we always have a good idea of the company's current situation and challenges and strategies. The company is very engineering oriented. The engineering team is sharp and they've got some really cool stuff. There is a heavy focus on quality but the company also knows that it requires a lot of work and investment. Quality doesn't happen just because people talk a lot about it. The company knows that faster development will lead to more sales today but better development will lead to more sales tomorrow. And we want to be here tomorrow. So the work life balance is good and we're proud of what we're building.

Cons

Guidewire is a startup but the benefits could be a little better. The company is big enough that individuals work on narrow areas. This can limit your impact and make it hard to learn new things.

5.0
Jul 12, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Guidewire is probably the most reasonable place I have ever worked. Management is focused on delivering quality software to insurance companies, so software engineers are treated very well. The insurance industry is notoriously slow, which gives us the opportunity to make good choices and not cut corners. Guidewire is full of humble geniuses -- seriously, there's a lot of brain power behind the keyboards.

Cons

Most of the technology that Guidewire uses is developed in-house. Because of that, there are fewer opportunities to gain experience in technologies that other software companies expect when hiring. Also, Guidewire develops software for the insurance industry, which is extremely slow and behind in terms of technology.

Viewing 100 - 102 of 1,472 Reviews

Glassdoor has 1,623 Guidewire reviews submitted anonymously by Guidewire employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Guidewire is right for you.