National Instruments reviews

Lack of respect amongst coworkers and from managers to subordinates. The sense of entitlement amongst some of the leadership is disgusting. Some managers (enough where it is affecting the entire company) mistreat employees, demean, and ridicule them. The company's general lack of frugality while claiming they want to help the community is bordering on inhumane. Food from unnecessary catering services are thrown away every single day. There were recent firings of over 150 employees but they found it necessary to hold a $2 million dollar "Company Day" (AKA Attaboyfest). That money could have gone back to the community they claim to want to help. Hypocritical to say the least. NI likes to pretend they have a "company culture" like that of Google, Whole Foods, and other companies. The only company culture you can find at NI is that of backstabbing, lack of "rule of law" - surrounded by mini-dictators who treat their "fiefdoms" as such. STAY AWAY. BEWARE.

- People can be "too nice" at NI. They hold on to bad employees and managers and hinder growth and development because there's a culture of spinning everything as positively as possible, even when there is NO way to positively spin something. I wish they'd be transparent and honest (ironically, "honesty" is one of the company's core values). They dilute the truth with corporate lingo and fluffy, high-level messaging. - Management is bad. Really bad. For a few reasons, I suspect: (1) There's a tendency to promote from within based on time with the company and, frankly, how well you kiss up to the right influential people internally. And please don't mistake "influential" for "effective." (2) People who are promoted to manager internally are very poorly trained or equipped to become effective leaders. It's really sad, because many of the managers are failing their teams through no intentional fault of their own. (3) Real experience is undervalued. There's been a bit of an influx of external hires, but they rarely last because the company rejects new ideas and ways of doing things (ironically, "innovation" is also one of the company's core values). - Senior/executive leadership has a lot of ego, but seem clueless and dysfunctional. There's been a lot of churn at the leadership level and the leadership structure doesn't really make sense, e.g. a company that supposedly prides itself in engineering without C-suite representation of R&D? a company that supposedly prides itself in its culture and people without C-suite representation of HR? there's even a C-suite role -- CMO -- that doesn't report to the CEO? Generally, leadership seems misaligned and there's a massive say-do gap. It's killed trust internally. Take the bonus (or lack thereof) as an example, which was way behind what's standard practice and there won't be a bonus at all this year because the company isn't growing or performing well. But better believe the CEO has been bragging about being the savior and improving the bonus structure for a couple of years now. - I think pretty much everyone here has mentioned the pay and benefits are below average. It's true. And when there isn't at the very least really inspiring work or a happy culture to replace poor comp and benefits, what's the point?