Pros
- Depending on the area of the country (USA) you work in, salary and bonus structure is pretty fair/competitive. - Work/life balance is a big thing with Dell. Of course it varies if you're in an acquisition org or even between specific teams, but overall/on average Dell culture is not "kill yourself for the job" mentality. Most of my coworkers in my 4 positions at Dell did not work a hard 40 hours, virtually none more than that. Friday afternoon meetings are rare. - Competitive time off: 3 weeks vaca above a certain career grade and then a paid company shutdown at Christmas. I think there's even another week after a certain number of years. Its also loosely governed (depending on your boss). - Most teams are pretty receptive to working remote at least partially. - Some cool growth opportunities are offered. Employee resource groups for professional networking, lots of internal training and extracurricular stuff.
Cons
- Easily the most political climate I've ever worked in. A very big hinderance to accomplishing anything significant or making long overdue changes. - Lots and lots of legacy executive and senior management that do not want to rock the boat or change with the times. This leaves a culture of legacy thinking; new ideas, approaches, challenges are NOT accepted. - Dell is too big and too cumbersome for its britches. Entire BUs are competitive with each other, rather than working together to build a cohesive Dell solution and family. Competing initiatives and product lines are the norm, the right hand does not know what the left hand is doing....ever. - Business is pretty bad and they're deep in debt from going private, so its a perpetual cut environment recently and for the foreseeable future. - Benefits outside of salary/bonus are subpar - Moving target on bonus structure and goals is unfair. Its changed several times during my tenure and of course favors the company. - More bureaucracy than the United States federal government - Glass ceiling career growth-wise unless one is well connected to the old guard, not a meritocracy. I see so much good talent get discouraged and leave (or worse, get RIF'd) or not get traction after years in their Dell tenure, while well connected friends or old guard or established folks have invincibility despite clear incompetence. - Incompetence, laziness, "just following orders" mentality, "hiding out" are all rampant; Dell is an MBA case study in bad organizational behavior and how bad is incentivized and good is punished