employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

National Instruments

Is this your company?

National Instruments reviews

3.7

68% would recommend to a friend

(720 total reviews)

Alex Davern

62% approve of CEO

46% positive business outlook

Reviews by job title

720 reviews

Reviews about "Compensation"

Return to all reviews
1.0
Jul 11, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you're top of your class at graduation (engineer careers only) and all you want is to get a job soon while working on finding another job that would be highly more rewarding, NI is the place for you. I believe you can surf the "honeymoon" phase for about two years before you notice, something smells bad.

Cons

And there I was, a freshly out of college, impressionable kid with an uncertain future thanks to the recent housing bubble burst. Then, a noble company kindly extended a hand—“come work for us!”. I was living the dream, wasn’t I? I was doing exactly what I spent 4 years of my life preparing to do and, getting paid for it. It didn’t take long until something started to smell “fishy”. Why am I taking a pay cut when there’s $1 Billion the company is sitting on? Why do I constantly see new young faces? It costs more to acquire new talent than keeping the ones you have. “The CEO has a plan!”—was constantly said but, at this point, I was convinced he was delusional and how could he not be? After all, he’s constantly exalted as if he was ever going to become the next Steve Jobs. That’s when I first asked myself, is the way of this company the way of a cult? “The CEO’s salary (just as that of Jobs’s) is $1”, not impressive when you realize he set this salary during the time the company decided to significantly increase their dividend payout. Of course it is constantly boasted as one of the best companies to work for; its scheme depends on it: getting impressionable young kids who don’t know better out of college and offer them a below standard salary. It is a brilliant plan, I reckon but don’t forget, this company pays for both, to be considered by Forbes and to know what’s the least monetary compensation they can offer not to get laughed at by candidates. Diminishing acquisitive power, increasingly meager health benefits, limited grow opportunity lest you work in their most profitable products. I quit! Did I have a better opportunity at the moment? I could have but, I just couldn’t take the smell of seafood when I am not the one eating it. And alas! I was not the only one for, NI is no longer considered within the top 100 great places to work.

2.0
Jul 4, 2015

Low salary, management issues

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Advancement was only made by changing departments, 4 departments in 11 years. Some managers were good, some not so good. Proudly didn't have layoffs until ~2014., other than 'clearing deadwood'.

Cons

Laid-off from professional position after 11 years, by a manager who was forced out himself. Company lets known bad managers drive morale down and shape departments without doing objective evaluation. Older employees who are not engineers seem to be 'laid-off' in a higher percentage.

2.0
Jul 3, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Friendly coworkers - Mentorship for new grads - R&D management have technical backgrounds - Low-pressure work environment (YMMV, as there have been teams in the past that were forced to work weekends to meet deadlines) - Annual tech conference where employees get to share new tech and ideas with each other. Shout out to the guy who ran python in the boot loader.

Cons

- Compensation and benefits are lackluster and don't seem to be improving. From the sound of it, NI has always lacked competitive compensation but Austin's recent growth is making this worse. - Lack of faith in upper management. NI has a bit of an attrition problem. Management first tried to write this off as due to the economy improving. But no one leaves because the economy gets better, they leave because there's something wrong. In May, management acknowledged that attrition was a problem and said they were going to address it. They formed a committee of employees (all VPs or Directors) and will propose ideas to Dr. T sometime in August. Compensation has been a know problem for years. Does management really need 3 months to figure that out? It seems like they're just buying time. Upper management is either incompetent or dishonest, I don't know which is worse. - Attrition. We're losing plenty of employees that have worked here 5, 10, even 15+ years. NI's compensation seems to be driving people away. Management thinks they can fix this by hiring new grads or overseas. Not only do we lose a lot of NI-specific expertise, but it's a blow to morale. NI is basically sending the message, "You are replaceable". Just ask our manufacturing division in Austin. - The amount of buzzwords. I really want to enjoy Weird Al's Mission Statement, but it's just too depressing.

Viewing 505 - 507 of 720 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,927 National Instruments reviews submitted anonymously by National Instruments employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if National Instruments is right for you.