Have received an offer from the test team in Sunnyvale. All this talk about layoffs is making me paranoid though. Would it be stupid to join Juniper at this time? Would I be hitching my wagon to a dead horse?
39 replies (most recent on top)
Don't go to Juniper or notorious layoff.com member aka "The Rooster" will track and hunt you down, for committing deadly sin.
Once in a lifetime opportunity? Look around and see some of the defensive comments here. Such as the one that brags about JNPR mooning to $100+, or the one that thinks Juniper pays "freaking extremely high base salary", or the dude that jerks off on a $2 increase in JNPR while in the exact same period ANET went from $250 to $300. Textbook autism, isn't it? Now ask yourself, do you want to work with people like that? Or even worse, become one?
You can laugh at a joke but you don't want to be one yourself. And after a while, the joke becomes old and feels pathetic. While JNPR will undoubtedly continue providing the respectable $.25 daily fluctuation to keep the dude high, you can go to a tier 1 company whose stock already mooned to $100 a few years ago, and enjoy a really good total compensation.
Gartner does not randomly pick companies and rank them in the not so magical magic quadrants. It is much worse. Companies such as Juniper spend money on dinners and events with Analysts at Gartner (and other analyst shops) focusing on specific technologies or market segments, and entice them into writing favourable reports. There are sponsorships at Gartner events, and buying Gartner services etc that come in to play as well.
At the end of the day, these Analyst reports from Gartner and others are carefuly crafted. They are are mostly true but, heavily influenced by reciprocal business deals and relationships between the vendor and the analysts.
Look at it this way... if companies didnt have to influence analysts this way, why would they even have a department or role in marketing called “Analyst Relations”?
Only on thelayoff.com - the perfect place to ask for career advice LOL
So basically, you just talked out dude who started this topic from accepting high paying job, where he had chance to slack all day long. Sounds like poor chap just missed once in a lifetime opportunity.
Looks like it’s time to drain the swamp, and throw the money at young talent.
Often times it feels as if grass is greener on the other side of the fence, most times it is not true. I left Juniper a year ago and say with 100% confidence that in case of Juniper grass is definitely greener on the other side of the fence. I was literally shocker as to much money companies throw at you, it is then that I realized that Juniper pay is nowhere compared to other companies. I am not smart enough to crack top tier company interviews. I joined a tier 2 company and even that company was able to pay significantly more than Juniper (more base, more bonus and significantly more RSUs).
Juniper is an excellent company for slackers. For good engineers, the company simply does not provide competitive compensation. The kind of inefficiency that we have in Junos sw development groups is appalling. Juniper should get rid of incompetent employees (including bad managers), so that they have enough budget for reward the remaining capable employees.
In other good companies, most employees are good, slackers like we see in Juniper are rare. I think this is the reason why they can afford to pay more. They simply can do more work with less engineers.
Maybe Juniper should trimm dev ranks a bit, and increase RSU grants to remainder elite.
Sounds like grass indeed is greener on the other side of the road.
@UFQFrdu-5nxy: Not sure what lottery you are referring it. I am not talking about some startup, I am referring to big companies making real revenue. These companies pay similar base salary as Juniper if not more and on top of that pay insane equity. Since these are public companies, employees can cash out RSUs as and whey they get vested.
Well play lottery then, which can payoff as well. You never know when you will get lucky.
Or use your freaking extremely high base salary to buy “equity” in those fancy other places, where sun is always shining, grass is greener by the day and devs pissing cool aid. You’ll get rich in no-time.
@UFQFrdu-5qtp: Articles which claim Juniper is top paying company only focus on base salary. Equity paid by Juniper to software engineers is pittance compared to other companies. Base salary in Juniper is good, but total compensation (which includes equity) s---s relative to other companies.
Right, that’s why it constantly ranks in top 10 in SV (and pretty much the world, nobody else pays more)
https://www.fool.com/investing/2017/05/16/the-10-highest-paying-silicon-valley-companies.aspx
But who can make bunch of crybabies happy. Learn to write couple of lines of spaghetti code, and you’re supposed to launch yourself into millioners these days.
Level of entitlement among modern yuppies is through to roof. Wouldn’t be surpised if majority of them ends up homeless in 20 years, when AI figures out how to write sh--ty code on its own.
@UFQFrdu-5kho: Although Juniper pays well for most folks to lead a good life, most of the other good companies pay much better. FANGs obviously pay much better. Arista doles out more RSUs and since its stock has done well for past few years, employees have made lots of money through equity based compensation. Since 2010, salaries for software engineers have exploded, however Juniper employees have not seen their salaries go up much in the last 8 years (relative to industry).
Work == Necessary Evil
Only fat paycheck can make it bearable/compensate a bit.
I pitty the fools going for ideology instead, there is no such thing in this industry.
Go be philosopher or artist instead.
@UFQFrdu-4hlc: Gartner named Juniper as a leader in data center networking. Juniper has <5% market share in switching. Do you really think a leader will have such low market share ?
Decided not to go with it.
Will continue with the similar job at a similar relatively unknown company with lower pay
Yeah, what would Gartner know, they randomly pick companies when they name them leaders, apparently... Some dude on layoff forum knows better.
@UFQFrdu-4nxk: I never heard about FireEye till you mentioned. I suspect from your argument that Juinper is not Tier 2 but Tier 3. I would agree to that. There is still 1 tier below Juniper where companies likes Wipro, Infosys belong. When I mentioned Juniper is Tier 2, I had considered 3 tiers in total. If there are 4 tiers in total, Juniper will be in Tier 3.
Regarding OP's question, is Juniper a good company to work for ? When you interview in a company like Juniper, you need to realize that it NOT a good company to work for. However, you need a job to pay your bills. If you cannot get a job in a good company, you do not have a choice but work in a not so good company like Juniper.
Please note that it is not easy to get a job in good companies anymore. The way interviews are conducted in Juniper is lot different than interviews in good companies. The bar is way high in other good companies simply because they can pick and choose the best candidates.
CTO moving from Google -> Juniper does not make Juniper Tier 1. He jumped because he got
a higher position in Juniper which is good for his career.
About Juniper making moves in newer tech, yes it is attempting to make the right moves. However,
judging Juniper's track record from past 10 years or so, I do not think it will succeed. Lots of new
tech which Juniper ventured into in the past few years has been unsuccessful.
JNPR belongs to the same tier with FEYE. Both are far from any other company you have listed.
With a title upgrade from DE to CTO. That itself says enough about tier difference, doesn't it?
I realize that a QA in the networking industry (purely Routing/Switching) is a skill set which would be useless in a few years from now. What I want to know is whether the company is making the right moves i.e. moving towards the right technologies and is not still testing legacy protocols on new platforms with higher capacities. is juniper making the right moves in the data center/CDN markets and providing technologies like SDN/NFV, Disaggregated OS etc. This would at least buy some time before the death knell rings.
Hey, just ask CTO... It seemed to be Tier1 enough, when be decided to jump over from Noodle.
@UFQFrdu-3onn: About the companies you mention, Square is tier 1 and rest are tier 2, although they are better than Juniper. What exactly is your argument ? Are you saying Juniper is Tier 1 or are you saying Juniper is Tier 3 ?
Placing Juniper is Tier 1 does not make sense since it is not in the same league as FANGs.
Juniper is a great place to work in some ways. Don’t get me wrong, it’s poorly managed but it’s always been a poorly managed place. Growing internet traffic is always going to be a strong headwind for our business despite our intense focus on product and technology (at the expense of the customer and even basic business planning). There are a lot of smart people at Juniper still so it can be very stimulating. And many groups within the company are still very laid back. It’s not a high growth, development culture. You probably won’t learn much from your boss. But there are benefits to a country club atmosphere. I can’t help but think we’ll hit an iceberg sometime within the next few years (this place is just too good to be true) but it’s been a great ride and I’m mostly enjoying it.
No, it is not obvious at all. If employees from other companies consider juniper in the same tier or better, you should see sizable recent joins from them. Where are them in juniper? Not to mention there are lots of companies doing much better. nvidia/vmware/arista/square/broadcom/etc. No way they belong to the same tier unless you put all of them in your tier 1.
Juniper is Tier 3. I got lucky and was accepted into the Tier 1 list back in the late 2017 ‘rif’. If your in sales, not a bad gig at JNPR but it’s above the norm pay scale wise to get you on board to push old, late to market products. Can’t speak to Development but most the sales folks in my round felt a hit in someway. Lots of good old networking folks on the sidelines from the CSCO/E//, NOK/ALU, ATT, VZW, etc looking for new opportunities. Transform your skills, because JNPR is old school stuff. And the ‘cloud stuff’ doesn’t cut the mustard compared to other vendors.
@UFQFrdu-3xjm: Obviously Juniper is Tier 2.
Tier 1 = FANG, MSFT, LinkedIn, Uber etc.
Tier 2 = Oracle, Salesforce, Juniper, Cisco etc.
Tier 2? How many companies in your Tier 1?
There is some merit in what UFQFrdu-2bjs is saying. You need to understand that Juniper is a Tier 2 company. Cannot compare to FANGs or other top tier companies. If you are working in some other Tier 2 company and salary is higher, you can make a move. Just keep your expectations in line. Do not compare Juniper to Google and expect huge growth etc. It is a job which you use to pay your bills, nothing more than that.
What a bunch of nonsense. Like everyone is going to build new facebook or tesla. We're talking about qa job here, as standard as it gets. If the salary is better, go ahead, otherwise stay where you are. As simple as that.
Not if you have the connections, language, race and ethnicity. These are the most effective tools here. Just find out how many of your compatriots are homogeneous in these characteristics, and if you fit in these, you will be right at home!
Don't come to Juniper. Ask your hiring manager a very simple question. When is the last time Juniper declared 100% bonus? Every 6 months they throw garbage bonuses at employees. Even Cisco pays better. This is a sinking ship and boarding now means career s---c-de.
It is not just about layoffs. Juniper is a dead end for your career. Also, not clear on what high salaries folks are talking about. Juniper salaries are not competitive when compared to other software companies in Bay Area. If you compare to companies such as Avaya, Extreme Networks etc. salaries will obviously look high.
Yes, high salary is known career mistake. Better go somewhere where you get nice promises & future prospects instead.
Dead end. Think really strategically as to YOUR FUTURE and where you will grow. Juniper is not looked upon as a great place. Don’t make a career limiting mistake you going for the high salary.
Layoffs are pretty much the norm in almost all companies except the usual suspects(google et all). Are the layoffs in juniper concentrated around particular job roles or is it random or permeating all orgs within juniper?
Absolutely, as long you don't get layed off, even before being hired.
What does your intuition say? Read all the comments online and then decide for yourself. Good luck with your decision!