VMware reviews

VMware provides a lot of challenging work. There is variety in the tasks we do and projects we work on. The people I work with are, for the most part, very professional and reliable. Management in my area is responsive and very supportive when it comes to helping us navigate the wider organization. The campus has a lot to offer and is a pleasant place to be. Our management is very progressive about using the latest tools, gives us training regularly, and provides us with support services that many companies no longer offer.

I felt like VMware was going to be a good experience from my interview. At other interviews (hint, starts with a G :) I was asked a bunch of questions about horses racing around a track and balancing balls, and I wasn't convinced the people I talked to really knew (or cared) about systems/kernel issues or had a vague idea what my grad school research was even about. It felt like I was being asked trick questions to join some exclusive club. At VMware, I interviewed with the team I would be working with, and I was very impressed. The few canned questions always turned into good conversations, we talked about my research and current topics in the systems world. I left feeling knowing these were really smart guys who know their stuff, and that I'd enjoy working with them. I've since found this is true across the entire engineering staff. Luckily they offered me a position, and it has been a great job. After being in the research area for several years, I wanted to get into building "real" products, and that's exactly what we do. It's great to know your code is providing value to huge range of customers across the world. VMware is really on the cutting edge of virtualization, and there are still plenty of interesting problems to solve. Work/life balance in R&D is good - you have the occasional days where a big bug gets unearthed by QA or there's just a lot going on, but generally you have plenty of time to complete your tasks and branch out when something interesting comes up.