Highly Political Company with Mediocre Middle-Management
Pros
The pay when all engineers were senior engineers was higher than most other companies. Most co-workers in the earlier Cloud days were great engineers and extremely helpful.
Cons
There is a great deal of politics between Engineering orgs and even within engineering teams. Even with obviously outstanding performance, failing to play politics well will leave you unrewarded, while others with more political savvy will be rewarded for no work at all. Ultimately, the manager is free to be biased for/against employees for any reason at all. Engineering managers in some orgs tend to be non-technical--only doing project management. Although some non-technical managers might still be good managers, there are some that are horrible, with poor project management skills, and that don't even know what is happening in their own team. Those managers tend to be employed at Netflix for many years. There is no career development support here. It's unlikely that the current management will do any more as new (lower) engineering levels are added. As for the 360 review, it's best to avoid giving significant negative feedback as it makes co-workers defensive. Everyone is afraid of anything negative that can lead to them being fired. HR and management advice on 360 reviews is unrealistic and self-serving. It only helps management since some managers don't know what's happening on their own teams. Ultimately, Netflix is a large company where experiences will differ, depending on which team and organization you work in. If you change teams or managers a few times, though, you'll encounter highly toxic situations. For new mid-level prospective employees, avoid Netflix since the lower pay is likely not worth the extreme politics and toxicity.
