Dec 29, 2010
Employees are treated as a herd
Anonymous employee
Sonic Solutions reviews
3.6
61% would recommend to a friend
Dave Habiger
58% approve of CEO
76% positive business outlook
Sonic Solutions has an employee rating of 3.6 out of 5 stars, based on 33 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Sonic Solutions 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
33 reviews
2.0
Sep 22, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Flexible work hours. I've worked for several companies in the past and Sonic is the best when it comes to providing flexible work hours to its engineers. Work-life balance is very good. Great people to work with. Most of my colleagues are/were bright, smart, and team players. I never saw anyone at Sonic who behaved unprofessionally. Opportunity to work on cutting-edge technologies.
Cons
Senior managements are absolutely incompetent. Stock options mess, yeah, I don't blame them for having stock options mess since that used to be the way how tech companies ran in the 90s. But how long did it take for them to cover from that mess? a year? a year and half? unbelievable. Companies like Apple, Broadcom and some other big corps recovered from their stock option scandals in much faster manners. How could a company like Sonic cannot recover within several months? And it is senior managements who are causing employee morale to sink. While they're cutting people left and right, they came up with year end bonus plans for themselves. I mean for what? Achieving a collapse of stock price from $20 to $1? Senior managements are always making excuses for their incompetence. If they were competent enough to achieve the goals and the promises made to employess and investors, they would have done that a few years ago. But since sometime they don't even know what they're doing, they are buying companies that don't really make sense for Sonic's future. Offshoring to China is causing everyone who still survived many rounds of layoffs to suffer. People know their days are numbered at Sonic. How can a technology company can survive without good engineers? Expecting engineers in China to be as good as engineers in US is just absurd. Most of US engineers are seniors or principals while engineers in China have much less industry experience.
4.0
Aug 29, 2009
Very good technology opportunities, future direction is uncertain but may be improving
Current employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Sonic will provide the opportunity to work on some great new technologies. While working on new technologies, you'll be able to develop multiple new skills that will benefit yor career. You will also be able to work with some very talented engineers who are really at the top of the class when it comes to digital media. There are also some great managers within Sonic based on my experience with them - it's not across the board, but it's not a rarity either. Sonic is extremely flexible when it comes to balancing work and family. Even when working on tight deadlines, demands were never unreasonable. Co-workers and management are very understanding, especially when you show you're willing to sacrifice when necessary. It's a fair balance of give and take. If you prove yourself to be a hard worker, you'll earn the respect of managers and co-workers without needing to work 12-14 hour days. This seems to be unique among software companies in the greater San Francisco area from what I have seen. Though things have been shaky the last couple of years, Sonic may be headed in the right direction with their CinemaNow strategies. Health care benefits seem to be inline with most other companies. As overall costs go up, your contribution to insurance benefits goes up as well. In the past, the company has picked up a larger proportion of the increase than the employee. Fortunately, Sonic has provided some severance for laid off employees, though it probably hasn't lasted former employees very long in today's difficult job market.
Cons
Sonic has been going through quite a process trying to transition from working strictly with optical media to handle all your digital media needs. It's been a bit of a bumpy ride along the way at times. Matching 401K contributions were stopped this year. Stock option grants have disappeared since more federal regulations have gone into effect in recent years. Unfortunately, there is not a stock purchase plan for employees. Several rounds of layoffs have cut out some of Sonic top-notch engineering staff and not enough middle management positions. Most of the engineering workforce seems to gradually be moving to Shanghai, but it does seem there will always be a certain amount of engineering work in the US. Unfortunately, the Shanghai staff have not typically been as skilled as the US staff that has been laid off.
Viewing 16 - 18 of 33 Reviews
