Netflix reviews

4.1

80% would recommend to a friend

(2,523 total reviews)

Ted Sarandos and Greg Peters

87% approve of CEO

77% positive business outlook

Netflix has an employee rating of 4.1 out of 5 stars, based on 2,523 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Netflix employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

3K reviews
1.0
Jun 25, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-$$$$$$$$$$!!! ($13-$14/hr to start w/full time hours immediately) -Free rental subscription--the highest one they offer (8 @ a time) -Medical/Dental/Vision Insurance available right away -free food in breakroom along with Netflix connection & big screen TV to watch shows -showers in bathrooms if you walk/ride a bike and need to clean up before work -peers are fun to work with -high speed internet & laptops available to check e-mail, facebook, myspace on breaks

Cons

-fear-based company -anyone higher up than you will NOT respect you. Period. -cliquish environment (if you're not with the in crowd, you're invisible.) -very poor communication about job performance -do not uphold their own company values -rarely promote from within -contradictions galore! In the nine days I was there for training before being unfairly dismissed, I saw several examples of employees being treated like children and unreasonably scolded. One girl was in the classroom 5 minutes before break was over. She suddenly had a bathroom emergency, so she left quickly to take care of it. She made it back just as they were shutting the door. On the next break, she was taken aside by the supervisor (supe) who said, "I noticed you made it back from break just as I was shutting the door. I just wanted to let you know that's unacceptable. You need to be back from break several minutes early." (In other words, you really don't get your full break.) She apologized, saying she'd been there five minutes early but had an emergency. He said, "I'm sure it won't happen again." One girl had to call in sick because her child gave her the flu. They forced her to speak to three different people who scolded her, the last of which was the call center manager himself! He said he was going to give her the opportunity to come in for the rest of the week. Another girl simply asked her neighbor for a pen during class. She was pulled into a conference room afterward and told by two different supes that talking during class was unacceptable and wouldn't be tolerated. Netflix has a zero-tolerance policy for what they call "push back". They touched on this very briefly in class during our second week of training. The example they gave was this: "If your supe tells you to change something and you say, 'I don't feel like it, so I'm not going to', that's considered push back and will not be tolerated." Basically, it's outright insubordination. My supe said I needed to work on verifying every account. When people call in, their account auto-pops onscreen....unless they don't give their service code to the automated answering service before they're transferred to a live person. This happens about half the time and it's mostly people who don't have accounts and are just asking about the service. So I asked my supe, "Is that even when they're just calling with a general question about the website?" He said we needed to at least ask for a name and warned me that what I'd just said was considered push back but he'd let it slide this time. I was baffled but just said, "Okay." The same supe told me he liked that I was resolution oriented because that was a good thing. An hour later, he took it back saying it was bad and I needed to focus on empathy. When I was let go, they gave me the opportunity to give feedback. I mentioned the contradictions I'd noticed and also that I didn't understand how asking a simple question during training was considered "push back". I was told that it's all about perception and I just wasn't a right fit. They also said this sort of thing happens often. Before you go to work for Netflix, ask yourself this: if the pay is excellent and the benefits are great, why is the turnover rate at Netflix so high??? Why are there so many bad employee reviews out there? Notice the recurring themes in the reviews, i.e. lack of respect, no job security, fear based business, no career growth opportunity, etc. There comes a time when the realization that it's not everybody else, it's the company, has to set in.

1.0
Aug 18, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good location, free lunch, ability to choose laptop, corporate culture looks good on paper

Cons

Middle management is unable to effectively plan; they do not understand the strengths and weaknesses of their teams and seem to be mostly interested in protecting their bloated salaries. 20% of work force should be terminated. The other 80% is so segmented that they are unable to accomplish anything of any real value. Netflix was probably a great company to work for a few years ago, but is dangerously mismanaged now.

3.0
Nov 17, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Netflix is a place where you are surrounded by some really great minds. I wouldn't even say that SOME of the people are good while others somehow seemed to 'slip' in. If you aren't one of the best in your line of work, I don't think you'll ever get in the door here. I've been here for a number of years and have had the privilege to work with some extremely bright people. As an employee (and part of a team), its good to know that whatever you are working on is going to be top notch because of who is working on it. Netflix also encourages you to learn and explore new technologies and expand your own knowledge base. At past companies this was always a problem. If something didn't directly relate to what you were working on... well you had to make excuses and come up with reasons why you wanted to try something new. At Netflix, they not only encourage it but really urge you to try to broaden your own skill set. Our paid time off policy is not to be beat... Netflix has none! No two weeks a year or so many days off for personal/sick leave GARBAGE. Instead, you just tell your manager that you wanted to take three weeks off next month and he says, okay have a good time. We'll see ya when you get back! How cool is that? Its all about Movies for me. I used to think I was a bit if a movie buff. Yeah, that was until I worked here and met real movie buff's. Meetings are filled with references to movies. In one of the team meetings I go to every week, you can count the number of Ferris Bueller's day off lines. $$$ Show me the money. Netflix really does pay well! I left my old job doing the EXACT same thing I do here.. the only difference is, I make X2 as much! I'd like to write more, but those reasons alone are pretty good.

Cons

When I first started, the head of HR said "Netflix is a high performance environment." Often, I feel like they have confused "high pressure" with "high performance", and believe me, there is a difference. Sometimes I feel like they overly eggagerate the importance of SOME features. I mean, no one is going to die on the table here guys.. its just a movie rental company. Our medical/health benefits are mediocre at best and HR doesn't seem to care that the majority of employees are totally dissatisfied with the offerings. After constant employee complaints on how high our benefit prices are, HR comes back with even higher prices this year while having even less coverage. I'm not buying the line they fed us either "benefits are more expensive everywhere across the country." Whatever.. if I gave that as an excuse why I didn't get a project completed on time, I'd be "talked to". Every year, we have this total JOKE of a per review process (360 reviews). You HAVE to rate your peers and get ratings back from the people you asked to rate you. From my experience, its totally pointless and a huge waste of time / energy across the company. If we spent even a quarter of the time and money it takes to run, manage, and maintain this 360 review process, we'd have double the amount of movies in our Watch Instantly offering. Don't come here thinking you'll rise through the ranks! That just doesn't happen here. Yes, there are a few people who have started out as individual contributors and risen to the higher ranks but for the most part, I've watched very talented people leave Netflix to get management positions else where and Netflix doesn't really care. When you accept a job here, it will most likely be in the same position for the rest of your time at Netflix. There is also a very big brother feel here.. Netflix HR is watching you. But maybe that's just me! People seem to 'disappear' sometimes!

Viewing 244 - 246 of 2,523 Reviews

Glassdoor has 3,670 Netflix reviews submitted anonymously by Netflix employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Netflix is right for you.