Feb 20, 2017
Application Engineer
Anonymous employee
Super Micro Computer, Inc. (Supermicro) reviews about "working environment"
54% positive business outlook
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36 reviews
5.0
Nov 18, 2015
A fast growing company for you to explore your career life !!
Anonymous employee
Current employee, more than 10 years
San Jose, CA
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Supermicro is a fast growing company in the current IT industry and the company is still running by both founder and co-founder. You can definitely explore your career life here based on a clear guidance from our management team. Confucius said, "Virtue is not left to stand alone. He who practices it will have neighbors." That's exactly what we learn from our management team. Always do the right thing to help company business success!!
Cons
Company is growing and we continue to hire talent people to join the team. Hiring managers and supervisors should spend time to train the new hires and make sure they can get into this fast growing working environment as well as company culture. As long as you can follow company guidance to perform your job, this is a great company for you to explore your career life.
2.0
Nov 20, 2016
Long Working Hours and Shady Company Environment
Current employee, less than 1 year
San Jose, CA
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Supermicro has great health coverage and lots of people from different countries(Taiwan, China, Vietnam, etc.) to interact with.
Cons
Unfortunately as a salaried employee, I am required to work 55 hours per week(9am-8pm on weekdays, and 10:30am-3:30pm on Saturday). These hours would be acceptable there were alot of projects to complete, however there is often little to do and I find myself with an unbalanced work life. The real problem with the company is the competitive culture fostered by upper management. The CEO believes that having different teams competing with each other will improve performance. However, this results in the teams stealing ideas from each other to get ahead and creates distrust within each department. This problem further exacerbates productivity in that each group cannot ask another group for help or access to their existing/old projects. I can finish projects much faster and with better quality if I had resources from my coworkers. Instead, I feel like I am always reinventing the wheel.
4.0
Jun 17, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Coming from a large corporation, there was little upward mobility with rare opportunities to interact with different functional groups. Individual contributors were naturally siloed to work on specific tasks, and it became frustrating trying to expand my skill set and get more exposure to industry knowledge. I wasted a few good years of my career working in a comfortable, but annoyingly complacent environment. Supermicro is the exact opposite. You have free range to approach new opportunities and by necessity, you need to be quick on your feet and take on multiple roles from the get-go. It's a $1.5B company with almost 2000 employees, but it has a start-up mentality and a flat reporting structure that allows it to innovate or adapt more quickly than any other company I've ever worked with. It's also never had a quarterly loss meaning job stability is rock solid. But for ambitious individuals, job security is the last thing to worry about, and opportunity should be the main focus. Hard work and aggressive ideas are highly rewarded with individual recognition coming frequently from the CEO if you're doing a good job. Once you build momentum, it is infinitely easier to get promoted, obtain raises, and build your own team compared to working at a large corporation. If you want a comfortable, stagnant job, then I would recommend going with an established, large corporation. If you're willing to chase opportunity at a company that's growing exponentially, this is a great place to be.
Cons
The start-up mentality comes with its drawbacks. Processes are lacking and the internally developed software is ill-fitted to support a growing company, so a lot of tasks are manual and error-prone. This presents opportunity to improve these processes, but that's only if you have the time and energy. Internal training is sparse and there are no tuition reimbursement or external training options, so you need to be highly self-motivated to learn on your own. There's also a large delta between management styles and capabilities for different groups, so it's important to interview the managers during your own interview to make sure you end up in a group where you'll receive the proper support and encouragement. There is also an over-emphasis on face time from management; more focus should be on the end results of the contributor rather than how much time they spend at their desk.
5.0
Aug 30, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
Pretty good working environment, nice employee perks and having well-maintained food court.
Cons
having no cons so far
3.0
Jan 8, 2013
Hard working environment - the more hours you work, the better you look
Former employee, less than 1 year
San Jose, CA
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
There are good opportunities for engineering positions, especially working with Intel & AMD PC technologies.
Cons
Long work hours required. The managers get promoted for seniority and working hard, not for outstanding technical, managing or personal attributes.
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