Avantages
Very supportive SE management team who are genuinely interested in hiring quality people and developing talent. Very liberal work-home life balance - work from home at your own discretion when not required for face-to-face meetings. Doctors, Dentist appointments etc come out of work time with no questions asked. Every company has some bad eggs, but at NetApp the people are of a generally high calibre, a pleasure to work with and you can rely upon them. This is something I've really struggled to find elsewhere. Expenses are very liberal with SEs like me actively encouraged to entertain customers / partners to build our own relationships in social environments. Lots of opportunities for progression and active participation in anything you find that doesn't fall under the remit of your day job.
Inconvénients
There has been a higher than normal level of attrition in the past 12-24 months with several long standing employees leaving. Reasons for this vary with no common theme. Some cite the change of NetApp from a small company to a big one with the influx of too much bureaucracy and process. I personally think this just brings a different type of challenge and it might mean we need different types of people to overcome it. Financial packages are generally not quite as high as you probably could get elsewhere if you are a high achiever. SE management is currently in a state of transition and trying to figure out what it wants to be. There is some frustration in the business about the slow reactions of this management team and the fact that they are all people managers rather than technical leaders. There is a major product transition going on at NetApp as we take customers from 7-mode to Clustered Data ONTAP and it is creating a lot of pain for both customers and field sales. The corporate message is that the destination is worth the journey and if I put my hand on my heart I think it is, but it still makes it stressful sometimes when you're the one having to make that journey day in day out.