Red Hat reviews

High pressure for revenue and growth, sometimes at the expense of quality and values. Employees feel like they are commodity, poor work/life balance with expectation for managers to work well beyond 40 hrs & heavy travel for consultants, good managers are not free to really manage, management structure and policies are disorganized and not consistently enforced. Consultants are often blamed for project failures when they fail due to poor management. Very political environment, heavy favoritism, company will not protect good employees if targeted to be managed out due to making a mistake, project failure or personal bias.

- Equity grants practically non-existent now. No longer have a new hire grant. Retention grants may hit 1 out of 10 employees now and they are so small as to be about $2000 in stock per year. Likely the driver for the new ESPP program. - Many management new hires from large behemoth companies. They don't fit here and have created a management versus worker mentality rather than the previous one team mentality. It's ironic because they bring the stuff that didn't work from their old jobs and make Red Hat like the company they left. The "old-timers" who have been promoted to management still walk the talk, but are pressured by these new people and all the junk/process they bring with them. - Strange PTO policy. After 5 years you get 3 more days, 10 years another 3 more. - There is favoritism. Buddies get the promotions, the money, and the opportunities. - Low pay. No formal salary merit increase policy. Your salary used to be reviewed every June, but no more. Seems to be just whenever your manager feels like it. So if you have a cost cutting penny pincher new hire manager from one of those large companies, chances are you won't see an increase and are underpaid. I've heard it may be an 18 mo cycle now, but haven't seen evidence that it's in operation. Besides why 18 months versus a standard 12 month year? - There is talk that the bonus could go the way of the equity grants. Sounds like something Frank would want and since he is gone now, this may not materialize. - No promotion path after principal. Very few senior principals+ in engineering and non-existent in the support side of the house. The unfortunate result is there is no career path after principal. I've seen quite a few top level people (committers and the like) leave and this along with the other cons is why (particularly the culture change from the new managers). - Used to get the tools to do our jobs. No longer do development/tech employees get workstations. You used to get a laptop and a workstation, but no longer. You get a laptop. The result is people self fund their hardware. Likely the change was some great idea from one of the new managers.