Generous but frustrating place to work as software developer - Senior Principal Software Engineer Dell Technologies Employee Review

3.0
Sep 21, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

At least before I was laid off in February 2024: Good compensation . Good benefits. Flexible work hours

Cons

Bad developer experience (if you care to develop quickly and properly), because of: Very bad management, especially from the technical point of view. No concrete responsibilities - everyone is responsible for everything, which makes everyone responsible for nothing, making it next to impossible to quickly find the right SME for the problem at hand. Outdated development practices and technologies. Sticking to convenient technologies, instead of the appropriate ones. Outdated management mentality. Low quality of programmers (hence colleagues). Very high throughput of people. No specialization - tasks are thrown at you without regard to your specialization. Your colleague might have to do your job (using JavaScript, which she does not know) in a week instead of a few hours, because you are given her tasks, which you also will be completing 10 times longer because you do not know Python. Hence - tens of hours of lost time (Michael Dell pays dearly for each), bad quality of code, etc... No developer workstations with Linux or Mac - the company is stuck to very glitchy Windows-based machines with very resource-greedy security tools (e.g. bootstraping a project takes 30 minutes instead of 2 due to antivirus software) which I had to restart almost every day, and develop instead remotely on Linux virtual servers. Terrible communication and response time among colleagues - nobody is in a hurry, probably thinking that Michael will pay any way (or lay you off, because you are too expensive). At the moment the company actively sheds both bad "apples" and good but expensive ones in hundreds and thousands, shifting development to India, whose developers are much cheaper, but mostly very slow and of low quality.

Explore other reviews about Dell Technologies

5.0
Jun 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Really good place to evolve on your professional development

Cons

constant layoffs, which creates a stressful environment

1.0
Jun 16, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

At this point? None honestly.

Cons

They did a complete 180 since I got hired. Came in as remote during COVID and now that they forced most people back to the office, they made us 3rd class citizens in the company. Can't get a raise, a promotion, any spiffs or even the same contests that the people in the office do. This company does not keep promises and has been constantly doing workforce reductions ever year like clockwork for 4 years now. The COO Jeff Clarke is an absolute clown as well, you have to go into the office dressed as business casual, but this guy goes to One Dell World in undersized lame t-shirts every year. Hypocrisy at all levels of this company. Just looking for a good opportunity and I am out, after talking to my co workers I feel like 70-80% feel the same. The tools also suck and are down half the time as well.

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