Autodesk operates as a large corporation with many underlying orgs and projects that fight for relevance. They constantly change priorities which tends to mean a lot of instability for developers/staff. Losing relevance equates to layoffs. Gaining relevance equates to promotions and higher priority. At the start of each calendar year, upper management assigns a priority number to each project. If the project you are on slides down the priority list, you will eventually get laid off and your position get transferred to a higher priority project regardless of your inherent talent.
Autodesk is not good at retaining and moving talent within their org. Sometimes you'll see layoffs and hirings at the same time for the same type of positions! They prefer to hire externally. This is also a way they get rid of more expensive, senior staff in favor of younger talent graduating from college. The word they use is 'redundant' to get rid of people around January about every 2 years. They are not great at forecasting resource needs to prevent the redundancy in the first place.
Autodesk tends to also have a high turnover. Most of their employees are new as of the last few years. They have trouble retaining talent.
All this said, it's still a stimulating place to work if you don't stick to one position more than 3-4 years. Jump to different projects internally (you'll have to re-interview) to avoid getting stuck in a project that loses priority. All projects, outside of the big ones, will eventually lose priority.
The employees that have been around decades did so by anticipating which projects are on the rise and downfall and strategically jumping ship to the next shining ball while also building an internal network to help them.
The pay is good but not on the level of FAANG companies (Facebook, Apple, Netlfix, Google, Amazon,etc..).
