National Instruments reviews

Salaries are lower than comparable companies, and it's hard to work your way up. Each area has a different standard for performance reviews, promotions, and merit raises. If you work on a high-profile project, then you're a rock star. Otherwise, you're overlooked. Lots of politics in upper and middle management.

We work very long hours for average pay. We aren't told that during recruiting that some Applications Engineers work up to 80 hours a week, effectively halving hourly pay. Instead, there is a projection of a "fun" atmosphere where everyone works reasonable hours. The department depends on hiring employees who have extremely good work ethic, who will complete work that has to be done, even if that means working till past 10pm for a week. Exploitative, almost. There is also extremely high expectation on the quality of work produced. Management also tends to be extremely patronizing toward employees, and there is a Big Brother environment where people are too afraid to talk about or raise important issues that concern work environment. Work-life balance is a complete joke.