senior software engineer

software engineer

software test engineer

principal software engineer

director

Akamai

The company -- to my knowledge -- is not as bad as Uber. Pervasive sexual harassment is not there. But the soft sexism is a real problem, particularly in some specific groups. Parts of the company are really great. Sadly, the company does not have standardized hiring, promotion, and evaluation practices so the quality of your experience varies widely depending on the org your in or even your specific boss. 

Examples of soft sexism and bias from the Portal org:

- Women seeking advancement have to be extremely assertive and persistent . (Which can backfire.)  Whereas their male counterparts get groomed and developed

- Women bringing up data-specific concerns about projects and calling out risks are called overly negative. 

- If a woman is vocally critical about something she is perceived as "emotional."

- Bullying, overspeaking, and credit stealing occur routinely with the same individuals. HR does nothing and the bullies still get promoted.

Advice to job seekers -

Some parts of the company are great. Ask questions. Make sure to speak with a range of people before accepting an offer. Get a bead on how your future boss treats direct reports. Ask about evaluative criteria for performance and success recognition. Be wary of managers who talk a big game but, when pressed, don't offer specifics indicating they actually understand your discipline.

And lastly, know that even if you join under a great boss, the company does constant reorgs and you may not get to keep that great boss. The company is extremely slow to remove poor performers and even slower to remove abusive/toxic managers. They would rather manage out the "troublemakers" who have the audacity to complain about bad managers than reprimand or fire those managers.

Tread carefully.

Let me start by saying that Akamai is a wonderful place to work. I have been there for several years, and that is no accident. The product has been the industry leader for years; the people are brilliant, open minded, and inclusive; and the UX team and maturity has come an immense way in my time there. But not all products teams work in anything like the same way, and some are still just barely beyond the “sprinkle some UX dust on it“ stage of understanding.

That said, on the whole the company is in a better position to do good product design work than it has ever been in the past, and there is a lot of opportunity to make a good difference across many products.

There has been a chapter where there were some pretty toxic people on certain teams, but as best I’ve seen those folks have been strategically convinced to leave- the overall tone of the community feels very welcoming and inclusive. Sure, there are egos and turf wars, but you get that anywhere, and it’s better than it was.

Bottom line: network technology has never been exactly a passion for me, I kind of stumbled into it. I am very glad I did, however. While there may be a change for me in the near future, I can wholeheartedly recommend that anyone interested in complicated tech problems should absolutely spend some time at Akamai; it is without a doubt the best place I have worked.

•	Over 6+ years of experience in (3D) Design, Development, and Deployment of Enterprise Applications that encapsulate Front-End Web technologies and Back-End Web Services using Java/J2EE technologies.
•	Expertise with frameworks such as Spring, Struts, Hibernate, JSF, Log4J, JNDI, JDBC, Servlets, JSP, XML, XSD, XSLT, JSON, Java Beans, JAX-RPC,JAX-WS  API for SOAP services and JAX-RS.
•	Skilled in UI Development using HTML, Ajax, JavaScript, JSON, JQuery and CSS.
•	Knowledge of the Service Oriented Architecture (SOA) and implementation experience with SOAP and RESTful Web Services.
•	Experience in developing, deploying and administering the applications on the JBOSS, WebLogic, WebSphere and Tomcat platforms.
•	Experience in unit testing the applications using JUnit Framework.
•	Proficient in OO Methodology, Analysis/Design Principles and Design patterns.
•	Experience in writing SQL, PL/SQL, Stored Procedures, Cursors, and Triggers with Oracle, SQL Server, and MYSQL.
•	Experience in various project implementation methodologies such as SDLC, Agile and Scrum.
•	Experience in developing UML use cases, class, sequence and deployment diagrams using Microsoft Visio.
•	Experience in requirement analysis and document functional and technical design documents.
•	Good Team Player with strong communication and organizational skills.

Akamai has very hopeful and ideal work culture. They try and try to make you feel awesome about what you do.
But, "try"ing is not enough. Started from a very small and tightly knit group of people, while the ideal is great, does not necessarily translate into  the future very well, IMHO. Very little to no talent management. Manager trainings are laughable. Stale, older culture remains within groups and very strong office politics drive the majority. Not sure about other BU's but where I'm in, there's dwindling next generation of workers, which in my humble opinion, is not a good sign, especially when you look at the market now, that there are a plenty of competitors who are trying to do the same as Akamai does.

Growing pain? maybe. But you can't keep continue to have the "pain". You need to learn and adapt to get out of the funk. It seems that senior management is oblivious to what is actually going on below their level.

Great company if you're an engineer. They are treated very well.
Otherwise, there are plenty of other companies that you CAN get treated very well for your non-technical contribution.

Typical day at work: Plan call schedule. Conduct outbound prospecting activities into targeted accounts in assigned territory using advanced phone/email techniques. Coordinate internal resources to support sales efforts. Work with field sales reps on strategies to penetrate targeted accounts. 

What I learned: To have fun competing in a fast paced metrics driven environment. How to use PowerPoint effectively. The art of concise email messaging to C-Level executives. Effectively articulate Akamai solutions to C-Level executives in the context of their businesses.

Management: Seasoned, space defining thought leaders who inspire.

My co-workers: Some of the best people I've ever worked with.

Hardest part of the job: Achieving a consistent level of success against metrics.

Most enjoyable part of the job: Believing in the mission of the company, the problems the technology solves, and that performance is rewarded.

Akamai's technical assets, systems and procedures are well developed and mature; a day at Akamai is a day refining and renewing these things in small but important ways.  Engineers must understand that there is 15 years of very diligent work and careful attention to detail that proceeds them.  There are opportunities to innovate, but he pace of change is no faster than that of refinement - and for good reason.

The management cares deeply about the employees, they work hard to nurture and encourage career development at all levels.  Akamai invests in the community, students and even sponsors programs to teach those who've never worked in technology the basics.  Akamai has a strong culture of diversity and a good balance across cultures and genders.

Akamai's work culture is very unique. It is extremely fast paced and can be very frustrating at times but can also be very rewarding. Without a doubt the people at Akamai are intelligent on the whole. This can lead to some great ideas and occasionally some great collaboration but can also lead to the lack of common sense and not being able to see the forest through the trees.  

If you have a great manager and a solid group of immediate colleagues you will enjoy working at Akamai but if you are in a department with jaded individuals and get caught up dealing with a team, and there are a few, that are absolutely dreadful at communicating and prioritising you will be frustrated beyond belief. I am fortunate as my core group or coworkers are some of the greatest I have ever worked with. 

What a great company, built on wonderful ideals, with a tremendous history. Yet, if you listen only to subject matter experts, the users won't understand how to use your products. If you aren't considering scalability at every juncture, you wind up in this situation. Address the technical debt. Hire people who understand web standards, web performance, and inclusive design, including designers who understand the consequences of performance on UX, and engineers who value the collaboration with design. Management must understand how to incorporate Lean principles in the discovery and design phase. The competition is, and they're surpassing you.

A typical day of work for me was to come in open up my ticket portal prioritize tickets, work on ticket in proper order check shipping for incoming packages for tickets. Work on Machine deployments Receiving unpacking and installing, racking, power cabling, ETH cabling, Running Fiber cross connects, Configuring/Rescuing machines, Installing switches, Worked Machine Decons, Work with Team to make sure machines safe to power down. Bring down all machines remove cabling, Removed machines from rack and staged in Packaging room, Prepared machines for outgoing shipping in proper Server boxes and pallets. Including Wrapping and strapping machines down to pallet. Over all over the last 3 years I have spent there i have learned an immense amount about data room It field.

.. but I did find it to be fast paced and competitive. If you can't produce on a technical level you are going to be left behind and your coworkers and manager won't (or don't have time to) help. Though there are plenty of courses, presentations, seminars, etc. Future of the company is probably ok, but a bit uncertain. Lots of competition in their traditional space (CDN), but they're making an effort to diversify. 

I think the CEO was fine when the company was small and mid-sized and focused primarily on its CDN business. But the company might benefit from a veteran leader with a much more broad experience and vision, since the company needs to continue finding new revenue sources.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Senior software engineer 3 salaries reported	$159,882 per year
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Software test engineer 6 salaries reported	$131,040 per year
Principal software engineer 5 salaries reported	$210,810 per year
Director 3 salaries reported	$201,667 per year

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