Great colleagues and direct managers, horrible upper management and possible dictatorship from the mothership IBM - Technical Writer Red Hat Employee Review

3.0
Aug 22, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The three stars are purely for the people, the (leftovers of) culture and some of the provided benefits. There still are some remnants of what the culture used to be. The people in individual teams are very nice, there's no competing or gossiping that effects your work negatively. Direct managers are also awesome! I've worked in 2 teams, had 5 managers overall and all were great! Another pro is the work-life balance. There is no micromanagement so you can comfortably hit your work goals and have a lot of free time left. There is also a wide variety of company-made courses and they are open to anyone that might want to enroll, no matter your job title. This helps a lot if you want to branch out in a different direction and don't exactly know where to start. There are also a few monetary company benefits - Eden Red cafeteria points, Reward Zone system.

Cons

Well, lets start with the highest management. The "holy trinity of transparency" Matt (CEO), Chris (CTO) and Jenn (CPO) have made some very regrettable and opaque decisions in the past few months. The main one being the most recent, and the first in RH history, layoffs. There was no particular reason given for this major change that impacted a lot of people. 4% doesn't sound like a lot, sure, but still 800 people were left jobless pretty much on the spot. Another con is what seems to be becoming a trend and the new normal - not hiring an adequate amount of staff where needed. Some teams are wildly understaffed, overworked and underpaid. A clear example of this would be the former Benefits team - 17 people managing GLOBAL vendors for all 20K associates. Before I left that team had only 3 people left, 2 of them in their notice periods. This, of course, causes significant delays in ticket resolutions and 300-400 tickets hang untouched for months. However, if you listen to Jenn on the company call, all is fine and dandy and there is no such thing as unresolved tickets. We all choose to see what we want to see I guess. Additionally, the pay, as it turns out, is waaay below market value. Getting a raise or a promotion is almost impossible in 2023. To finish dragging what used to be my happy place through the mud - multiple major benefits have been taken away through the last couple of years (e.g. 13th salary in CZ, facilities resources, reward zone points application etc.) If you have the opportunity, work for RH. It still is the beacon for Open Source and there are a lot of things you can learn. Just be prepared to hear a lot of "back in the good old days" stories.

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Pros

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Cons

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3.0
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Pros

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Cons

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