Beyond the facade is utter incompetence - Network Operations Switch Employee Review

Get comfortable; this could take a while. While on the surface, it seems like Switch is "the" place to be, beyond the facade of fancy buildings and military-grade physical security, the company in general operates in varying states of chaos and disorganization. Add to that the mentality of the "C-suite" execs that they do not need to improve on a single thing, and you've got a recipe for disaster. Take the starry-eyed reviews on their Glassdoor profile, for instance. Every time someone voices an opinion that's anything other than complete adulation, a Switch mouthpiece submits a review that everything is great, and that their deficiencies are little more than "slight gaps," and the haters just gon' hate. This is a huge red flag. An even bigger red flag is the fact that the C-suite attempts to "track down" who submits negative reviews on Glassdoor. No doubt they'll be banging down the door of the IT folks as soon as they see this review asking for web activity (spoiler alert: you won't find me). As far as the culture at the company, I can sum it up in three words: it's total crap. Unless you consider cult-like mentality to be a good cultural aspect, in which case it's heaven on earth. The only action HR takes when an employee raises concerns is put you on the short list to be canned at the first opportunity. When a company responds with such thinly veiled hostility at any criticism, that's not a company in which you'll be able to thrive unless you're a "yes" man/woman. They're also the most "top-heavy" company relative to their size that I've ever seen; just take a look at their executive team webpage; there's more EVPs, SVPs, & VPs than most companies 10x their size. This wouldn't be all that bad if it weren't for the fact that there's a distinct lack of competence in many corners of the executive wing. The founder may be a smart individual (he has many custom patents on various aspects of Switch's ecosystem), but beyond that, the execs are simply a bunch of "good ol' boys & gals" who got lucky. They don't foster an environment in which people want to work harder because they want to make their leaders proud; they foster an environment where you either do what they say, or you're on the curb because they're the boss. And that's a great distinction: they aren't leaders, they're bosses. Another huge red flag is the fact that the company is currently the subject of a class action lawsuit which alleges they made false and/or misleading statements in their IPO in order to inflate their stock price. And the fact that their stock has fallen over 50% in the 12 months since their IPO should tell you all you need to know about their ability to run a company in a fiscally responsible way. In short: they care little about their employees and seek to only line the pockets of the executive wing and their cronies. Switch is hardly competitive when it comes to salary, paying at least 10% below market. They take particular advantage of former military service members, luring them in with the facade, then paying them much less than they're worth. When it comes right down to it, Switch may look like the most glamorous brand when it comes to the data center business, but they're by no means the be-all-end-all of "in" places to work, and I seriously question the ethics of the executives who sit in their ivory tower counting the windfall of money they got from the IPO. Their financial outlook is sketchy at best, and criminal at worst. So if you're looking for a place to grow, whether it's in IT, security, facilities maintenance, or anything else, you'd be much better off skipping the Switch circus and looking elsewhere.