Native Instruments reviews about "team"

What happened over the last few months at NI has been complete heartbreak. We all live in limbo everyday to see who's getting cut and who stays. No real communication to any of us and we are treated like cattle. No trust in management whatsoever. And other than my amazing colleagues, it's hard to feel team spirit when even the people who run the company can't be bothered to meet or talk with you as a human. We come in everyday inspired and wanting to work and we were constantly stomped on. If you don't fall into the "white male" category, be prepared to potentially hit the glass ceiling. I'm fed up and will be leaving. And in general, when you lose trust in the decisions being made, it's only a matter of time before the whole thing sinks. Rest in peace, NI.

Work has yet to be done with actively working on retaining employees

The entire top-level management (minus Mate Galic) consists of people who have no clue whatsoever about the actual market the company is in – and hence no clue about the products either. Also, it has recently been staffed up with like-minded technocrats who claim to be "gurus" or "champions" – and again have no clue about the actual customer (or the company's actual people and processes). It feels like a bunch of expensive consultants running the company because they think music is cool. The other reviews here are nailing it. That's how it is.

Team Members Lack of Music Layoffs Company morale Management Back Stabbers

Management does not seem to be interested in keeping good people. Many talented and nice colleagues have left recently, the reasons for that being rather trivial (e.g. no permission to take the next career step). There is a lot of confusion about the company vision and a lack of trust towards management decisions. The technology is very old. There is an intense management focus on growth that does not feel natural.

- The worst management I've ever experienced. - Many layoffs. Not stable environment to work. One day you're told that are the best in what you do (which of course, they don't mean) and the next day you're fired. It's random without pattern. - The layoffs are quite expected as the management is sinking the boat, but the way they do them is ugly and nasty. - Depending on the team you're working you may get a lot of micromanagement. - Most of the people that were highly skilled already gone. - Responsibilities are blur. You don't really know what others do. - Cross-team collaboration is very difficult and it takes a lot of time and effort. That's also a management issue not between the colleagues. - There is no stability and plan. Everything changes dramatically every few months. - Unproductive. Too many lost working hours in useless meetings. - There is no transparency. - Management is invisible. They only show up to parties or to announce the new fancy strategies, which will be changed again in a couple of months. Also, they are not open to any suggestions and you get just ignored. - The whole environment is completely unprofessional. Very amateur environment. - Skills don't matter. As a matter of fact, you'll soon find out that it's worse when you have them. - You must do what you've told. There's no room for personal expertise and experience. - There are so many things wrong in there that the list is endless. But all starts from the top and there doesn't seem anything that will change this.

Since a couple of months, there is a new (top) management team in place (they call themselves "Executives", I would rather call them FLOP Management). This new management team is totally incompetent and highly overrated, and their contribution to the company so far has been the unnecessary layoff of good people (people get 10 minutes to clean their desk!!). The other contribution of this "Management" is ZERO. Looking at their CVs, they stay on average between 6 months and 2 years in a company. The only communication they do, is prepared by an external PR company and uses a lot of expensive words but is totally useless (if you want to know the kind of communication, read the company reactions on the previous postings here at Glassdoor: alligned blabla; strategy blabla; vision blabla; company goals blabla; transformation blabla, blablablablabla). The management team doesn´t even understand the basics of business, let alone of the music industry, and they probably never made any meaningful contribution in their life. But they have an ego from Berlin to LA and back (probably comparable to their salary). With this management team, Native Instruments will be gone very soon (signs are already becoming very clear).