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National Instruments

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National Instruments reviews

3.7

68% would recommend to a friend

(2,459 total reviews)

Alex Davern

62% approve of CEO

46% positive business outlook

National Instruments has an employee rating of 3.7 out of 5 stars, based on 2,459 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The National Instruments employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Manufacturing industry (3.5 stars).

Reviews by job title

2K reviews
2.0
Jun 13, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Great place to meet young energetic people * Great place to challenge yourself * Easy to communicate groups for specialized support

Cons

*Too many products to sell, not enough time *Sales mgmt is a joke - a bunch of self centric folks who think their way of doing technical sales is the best and is a religion *Promotions are hard to come by and mgmt discourages learning new things

2.0
May 22, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Starting salary was better than I expected. I was offered about the average of what a mechanical engineer at my university made coming out of school, which is really good considering many of my peers went to work in the oil and gas industry where salaries are very high. The Applications Engineering department was a very fun place to work when I was there (2008-2010) - my peers were mostly high performers and young so we had lots of fun. My first sales manager was the best manager I've ever had. NI also makes some awesome products.

Cons

AE management is a joke. Your "manager" is someone as tenured as you, which means they are about 24 years old and are supposed to be in charge of your career development despite the fact they haven't developed their own career yet. NI stands for "no income". Salary is nowhere near competitive over time. The worse part about this is management and HR know this and continue to spew corporate crap about how it's in line with the rest of the measurement/automation industry and our "whole package" is great. The problem is, even the "whole package" isn't great. The health benefits have been decimated and aren't as good as they are with my new company. I doubled my income when I left NI! NI talks a lot about corporate culture and how it's a great place to work, and 10 years ago it was probably the best place to work in Austin. However, Austin has exploded in the last few years with silicon valley giants like Google, Apple, Facebook and Evernote moving into town. Austin has become "Silicon Hills", and there are a lot of great places to work in Austin now. The culture at other companies in town is as good or better than NI, so many talented NI people have realized that they can make more money and not sacrifice culture and still work in Austin. The best people are leaving in droves. Although there are still many top performers at NI, there are a lot of average and low performing people still there because they don't have anywhere else to go. NI is a great place to work - if you are an average or low performing person. It sucks if you're a high performer and want to be rewarded for your merits.

4.0
Mar 28, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I was a seven year employee of NI and had numerous promotions during that time. There is a pointed focus on developing employee skill sets. A lot of in-house promotions, too. Great onsite amenities, such as multiple cafeterias, gym, health clinic (sooo convenient), volleyball courts, and more. Easy access off of Mopac, and right across the street from the Domain. The ESPP program is fantastic - free money to those that take advantage of it. The culture is very strong in this company, it really shows. This is the only company I worked for that spent a significant amount of time correctly managing employees, from timely praise and attentive listening, to performance management when necessary. That's probably the one thing I miss most about working at NI.

Cons

Compensation policies. The bottom line is, fight hard for your starting salary. After that, you'll be subjected to an annual raise policy that, when they're given (some years not), are small bumps (2-6% on average). There is no level-setting of salaries once you are promoted.

Viewing 106 - 108 of 2,459 Reviews

Glassdoor has 2,926 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.