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Stanford University

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Life in a cube - Development Staff Stanford University Employee Review

2.0
Apr 17, 2010
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Stanford has good benefits in terms of health care for you and your family. It also has a decent matching retirement plan available. The salaries are comparable to other large non-profit organizations. The free Caltrain card to work is a good money saver, too, assuming you live near a train station.

Cons

-There is no parking and if you find any it is super expensive. -Inflexible work environment where innovation and creativity are stifled. -Employee personal development is non-existent. -There is little support for a work-life balance. Some managers are responsive to having employees who are parents and others just treat them poorly. -Middle and upper management are very impersonal and provide little feedback on work performance. -Much of middle management is shuffled around because of inefficiency but there is no motivation to fire them because they have been there too long. -Talented staff prefer to work elsewhere and there is a significant loss of good staff every year. -Much of middle and upper management is burned-out. -Middle and upper management are oblivious to making the best use of some of its staff. People are routinely hired who can do so much more but managers hoard the resource and don't let them collaborate with other departments. -Departments rarely work well together. There is a lot of territoriality and reluctance to share any resources. -The highest officers in the department are very removed and don't realize how inefficiently a lot of things are run. -Transferring (or attempting to transfer) between departments even after many years of service is looked down on and people get overly jealous and defensive about this. Retaliation in this area is common. -Managers get little training on how to promote the best from their employees. -The politics feel like a corporate boardroom. -Most of the non-management staff are always looking for another job. -There is a lot of red tape to get anything done.

Explore other reviews about Stanford University

5.0
Jun 25, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Stable beyond the out-of-ordinary circumstances like 2008 housing crisis and covid. Among other colleges and universities, salaries are higher as I looked at other listings at time of hire,

Cons

University as a whole has its base financial and guidelines for rules and policies but each department and program acts like its own system and has their own specific policies that sometimes supersedes the universities own rules stricter. It's hard to maneuver and there's a lot of verbal rules and understandings that aren't said loudly.

4.0
Jun 19, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Overall, Stanford is an amazing place to work. The environment and benefits can't be beat. You can go for a swim on your lunch break or a walk around the lake. The recreational classes and opportunities are usually great. Eating at the dining hall, although pricy, is a real treat.

Cons

If you're not senior management, faculty, development, etc., Stanford's pay has not kept up with the cost of living in the area. If you come for a job from outside of California, be prepared for a real shock when you see the kinds of rentals and the prices. Beauty has a price. You will not be able to live near campus as the average employee. Unless you're really familiar with the traffic in California, don't look at places that you think are an hour away, because they'll be two hours away by car. And you'll have to pay to park on campus, so not driving at all is your best option. Many administrative jobs are held by partners of people working in tech or faculty, because that's the only way you can afford to live there. If you don't have a partner making $200K+, you'll be taking the train or bus for an hour. If you're thinking about buying a house and you don't have a suitcase of cash, that sound you're hearing is my laughter. It's also important to realize that the working conditions across campus vary by unit. Working at the Graduate School of Business will seem more like a corporate job; working in Medicine could be brutal; and the treatment you will get can vary by department.

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