software engineer

staff member

senior technical specialist

staff engineer

senior software engineer

VMware

Check numerous incoming emails, schedule daily work and prioritize accordingly, meet with supervisor, attend meetings to take notes, publish notes according to manager's needs; highlight action items with time commitments, answer calls, filing, work on projects outstanding, schedule meetings for the managers, check manager's emails and print out as needed, create project files for follow-up.

What I learned was to be self-motivated and independent worker according to the needs of management and projects. Keep ongoing priorities log for reporting purposes. 

A highly multi-tiered management structure with a moving organization according to business changes and needs. It was necessary to have great co-worker communication and participation skills at all times. The most difficult part of this job was the amount of walking to be done between buildings while the business changed and grew rapidly. There were over eight other offices spread out on several city blocks until the campus was consolidated. We used golf carts and bicycles to make the time more convenient into one large campus. It was necessary to attend all meetings and obtain instructions and information from your manager. There were company-wide software tools to learn, that didn't always parallel or match standard industry practice but mostly useful to the company. We produced many PowerPoint organization charts for the continuous change and growth especially at meetings large or small.

I worked diligently to meet and resolve employee issues with the Travel & Expense process so that reimbursements took place timely for both employee and for accounting. There was a huge backlog of expenses that employees refused to use the existing system, until I was able to provide a usable training program that refined the process. I gave class training and worked one-on-one until the backlog was resolved, Afterwards I was assigned to a different  department within the company.

I really enjoyed the company philosophy to grow and train their employees with higher level education or seminars. The employees were given many perks such as onsite organic snacks and drinks, local exercise classes and gym, to name a few. I felt the company valued their employees and supported them especially with invited family celebrations throughout the year. Product launches and celebrations were the norm and happened frequently to keep company morale high and focused. Families were recognized as important part of the employee's life such as during pregnancy or needed time off, a sufficient program for Family Leave was instituted.

Storage engineer for 3 1/2 years.  Best thing I can say is that there will be almost zero office politics and backbiting with your peers.  Its a tremendously collaborative environment with some unbelievably smart people at your disposal.  You will learn a lot about VMware environment management, which will help you a lot for future positions.  Its also a very comfortably casual environment.  I thoroughly enjoyed going to work everyday in a t shirt and shorts.

One of the biggest issues I had was inter-office politics.  You'll find yourself constantly battling the offices in Cork and Bangalore over their tossing you their work, and your often inability to do anything but eat it.  Also, while the majority of direct managers are really good people, every so often they hire someone who is a complete misfit for corporate culture, and that can make your day miserable.  I quit because of my direct manager, who was so by the book, he could have been replaced with a small shell script.  When I needed him to back me, I could count on him to completely disappoint me.  Another major management issue I had is because its a rather large company with many levels of management, often the decisions made by high-up senior management are more about bean counting and theory, but its effects on the actual people are horrendous.  We sometimes have to rely on tools for major parts of our business (case management system run through Salesforce, a recent change to our KB system that was completely ineffective) that can really hinder your ability to do your job well, but management is more about "use these tools as directed by management" than "lets give you tools to do your job well".

Bottom line:  If you have the opportunity to work here, take it.  Get everything you can out of the place in terms of knowledge.  Spend some time there, and then go get yourself a better job with all that knowledge.

•	Analyzed Business Requirements and Developed Test Plans, Test Cases and generated Test Scripts for both Positive and Negative testing.
•	Performed Code Walkthrough and Quality reviews of software applications.
•	Extensively used Quality Center for Test planning, Test execution, defect tracking and Reporting.
•	Set the traceability between test requirements and test cases through coverage.
•	Tested various reports which were developed using Business Objects and validated the data expected versus actual.
•	Validated the data flow from Source to Target tables by verifying the mappings and transformations in ETL Tool, Informatica.
•	Tested various historical data and department wise data.
•	Written SQL queries to validate data against the Business Object Reports. 
•	Ran various jobs in ETL Tool, Informatica using UNIX operating system
•	Developed bug report after manual testing, bugs encountered during testing and sent to developer by taking snapshot of it. 
•	Worked with various Informatica client tools like Source Analyzer, Warehouse designer, Mapping designer, Mapplet Designer, Transformation Developer, Informatica Repository Manager and Workflow Manager.
•	Extracted data from various heterogeneous sources like Oracle, Teradata and Flat Files.
•	Responsible for reviewing of automated scenarios scripts developed by QA team for their correctness as per scripting standards.
•	Involved in preparation of test plans in Quality Center.
•	Responsible for script review and enhancing the scripts as per the scripting standards.
•	Facilitated formal review meetings with users and developers to report, demonstrate, prioritize and suggest resolution to issues discovered during testing cycles.
•	Prepared test data for automation of regression test cases.
•	Executed scenario scripts and executed test cases.

A Typical Day at Work
1. Collaborative: Team meetings, brainstorming sessions, and knowledge sharing.
2. Dynamic: Priorities shift, new challenges arise, and adaptability is key.
3. Productive: Focus on tasks, meeting deadlines, and delivering results.

What I Learned
1. Technical skills: Industry-specific tools, software, and methodologies.
2. Communication: Effective communication, active listening, and conflict resolution.
3. Problem-solving: Critical thinking, analysis, and creative solution-finding.

Management
1. Supportive: Managers provide guidance, resources, and feedback.
2. Empowering: Autonomy to make decisions, take ownership, and grow.
3. Accountable: Clear expectations, goals, and performance metrics.

Workplace Culture
1. Inclusive: Diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives.
2. Innovative: Encouraging creativity, experimentation, and learning.
3. Supportive: Teamwork, mentorship, and work-life balance.

Hardest Part of the Job
1. Time management: Prioritizing tasks, meeting deadlines, and managing workload.
2. Challenging situations: Dealing with difficult stakeholders, conflicts, or unexpected issues.
3. Staying up-to-date: Keeping pace with industry developments, trends, and best practices.

Most Enjoyable Part of the Job
1. Impact: Making a difference, contributing to the organization's mission.
2. Collaboration: Working with talented colleagues, sharing knowledge, and learning.
3. Growth: Opportunities for professional development, skill-building, and career advancement.

Most of my day is done in our systems and through email working with my customers - new hires, hiring managers, staffing, HRIS. 
VMware focuses on best practice implementation and process documentation; you must be able to work with a constant changing environment and policies/procedures that can change week to week.
Management is not held accountable nor do they share job impacting information. 
My team is a dedicated team - dedicated to teamwork, positive environment, collaboration and customer service and satisfaction.

The hardest part of the job is working 11 hour days and not being recognized for hard work. Promotions are limited to upper management and there is little room for development and growth. Also, performance review is not directly correlated to merit increase. You can have an almost perfect review with no merit increase to show for it.

The thing i enjoy the most at VMware is the collaborative environment, the dedication to the community. VMware gives employees 40 hours a year of PTO that is for community service and philanthropy and they highly encourage employees to use this time off to get out and serve. Also, the ability to work from home or work remotely and have a flexible schedule makes VMware highly desirable. Lastly, i work on a rockstar team; i enjoy coming in to see my team and the camaraderie.

VMWare is a great place to work on site. However, some will feel this place is really over the top "liberal" from the CEO to your Direct Managers. And it's been like this for the past 6 years. It has taken VMWare years to recognize Martin Luther King, Juneteenth & Veterans Day. This primarily due to C Level or World events. VMware really don't like to be involved in World Events. But in the past 4 years, they are trying to catch up. You will get and see many Management Levels in a political stance within Vmware. Not your world Politics. But internal politics. 

There are many people with great ideas and majority of the management will take those ideas as their own and claim it as their own with no credit to actual owner. Many of these managements all have ego's that they need to check at the door. Growth, are for those who really brown nose within their "click" based on popularity. Then there are some who gets hired or promoted and yet still have no idea to manage people or the product/position they were hired for. Also watchout for the internal survey's. Especially the "skills" survey. IF you ever get one. Just lie about it. It's a gauge for higher management to indicate "lay off markers". 

A typical day at work involved calling on end users and partners to drive VM Ware business.  This was a hybrid role that included on site customer visits. 

I learned how to work effectively with partners end users and internal resources to drive complex sales in the mid market.  I also learned how to qualify real deals thereby achieving mandated growth objectives. 

Management at that time seemed to be in denial about the possibility that VMware had maximized it's existing market potential.  And in the process offered new solutions that were not as effective as those offered by the competition.

The hardest part of the job was preparing for the detailed weekly forecast calls. Management was quick tempered and as a consequence forecast calls were geared to avoid conflict by providing overly optimistic information. 

The most enjoyable part of the job was working with some of the most talented sales people in the business, and getting in front of customers and finding out about their real business needs and concerns.

I started with VMware when they were still in hyper-growth mode. The company was fantastic, the technologies we worked with were cutting-edge, and management was sharp and focused. Things started to go awry when we got a few years into Paul Maritz's leadership, acquisitions made no sense, and we lost our focus. VMware attempted to re-assert its dominance with some success twice over the last 5 years, but ultimately fell prey to its EMC ownership. The EMC ownership ultimately led to the Dell deal, which created decay and malaise within the organization.

What was once an awesome and fun company to work for became a depressing, drudgery and paperwork-filled Office Space like nightmare. I had absolutely no motivation to do anything at VMware in the last few years and wallowed in reorg after reorg until the company finally just started getting rid of its employees on a large scale.

What is the best part of working at the company?
I made a ton of money (180% of plan year, 190% of plan year after 1HFY) for the unfortunately short time I  was there

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
The Account Executive I was partnered with was less than honest. I can honestly say my life is significantly less stressful with the person in my life

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
I was in sales and it was bad,  especially given people were making $$ like the old early Internet days. Account Executives tend to view Pre-sales engineers as tools and throw them under the bus behind closed doors. Whatever culture Vmware had the remnants were there in 2021 when I started but the culture change when hiring was accelerated and they started scrapping the bottom of the barrel for Account Executives

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
3/4 of the time I was learning new skills and meeting customers. The other 1/4 was defending myself against my own Account Executive

I didn't learn much at this company, job was repetitive and people do not advance.  Middle managers are entrenched while leadership churns to catch up to industry technology advances (containers, OpenStack, etc).  Ideas at the bottom are squashed.  A typical day in Professional Services involves repetitive discussions with internal leadership and duplicate entries in tooling to communicate availability saddling the customer / project with the cost of back office administration and lack of processes.  Hardest part of the job is dealing with internal disorganization and inept managers while the enjoyable part is dealing with customers.  Advertised EPIC values don't seem to apply above the individual level.

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