Been thinking about quitting, and was wondering how are those who already left Juniper on their own doing? Any regrets?
I hope some are still checking this forum occasionally and will be able to give me an answer. I think I'm looking for that final push to take the plunge...
Damn you RSUs. I’m locked in.
I worked at JNPR a little over 2 years. I was a temp and converted to hire. However, I left a month or two after conversion.
I got a higher paying job, one thing led to another, and now I work at the big(gest) internet company. I think my pay (base) is 30 k more than I was getting at JNPR. Way more than that in TC.
I thought Juniper was all right, coming from Cisco, but it actually tends to pay bottom of market.
There's so many better places to work, but also many worse (Cisco).
I left Juniper for good 20 days back , Juniper is a nice company with awesome culture but lacks fire and growth which makes you a woodcutter with not so sharp axe . Guys move out explore the world
I quit a year ago. I was getting more and more scared with the endless layoffs. And I m older so I assumed my time would be up at some point. Even though I was a high performer. I’m making the same I used to make. A little more but I gave up some RSUs. But working harder. Slightly more stability/security but you’re never fully secure. But keeping my contacts at Juniper so I may be able to return some day if I want to. But I just can’t see Juniper returning to any type of growth anytime soon.
@XbwbLKc-1gjw Since you're at Cisco, WLB (good pay, low drama) is reputed to be great overall. Other places are Google and Microsoft. The rest are more more mixed depending on group. Remember, were talking WLB, since you asked. B/c a FANG trounces J in every facet, regardless!
Definitely avoid Netflix if you're frazzled about firings. N pays HUGE to convince you to come, but with your full acceptance and knowledge of the fact that you may be fired 3 months later. Literally! They fire all the time people they see that don't visibly contribute to the business (but this also eliminates Juniper type of toxicity). So much so this is, that Reed Hastings fired his best friend! If you make it though, and are risk ON type of guy, you could EASILY clear $300-500k+ (pure cash--as they don't really do the RSU thing) without breaking a sweat. They are the best paying company in the Valley BTW.
@XbwbLKc-1twm Thanks a lot! Much obliged!
Based on what I know from other FAANG employees, in general Amazon and Facebook are more stressful, then Netflix and Apple, then Google. But WLB largely depends on your role and team. For my own experience, in my current team at one of FAANG, I can work from home by default and only go to office for important meetings. This is for the U.S. I don't know much about EMEA though.
Work culture should be much better. You will not get dumb colleagues who use # of votes and # of views on an anonymous website as a poll. This alone is already a huge improvement.
There are not many folks here to give you a better big picture. You probably want to use the app from https://www.teamblind.com to build a real anonymous poll and tag FAANG guys there to contribute their opinions.
Question for those who are with FANG: How is the work-life balance? Can you work from home if you wish?
I worked for Juniper for just under three years in EMEA. First couple of years was fantastic. Then I got an incompetent, inexperienced ego-maniac bully double-promoted out o the blue to be my manager. Left as I had serious issue with my professional reporting to a total dolt and since Cisco came knocking at the same time - took that as a sign. I am fine at Cisco and consider it a work environment at least a thousand times better than the Juniper I experienced in my last 6 odd months there. However, am starting to think and look around for FANG opportunities as my next step. But shall like to know about the work-culture especially work-life balance there. At Cisco that aspect is absolutely great and matters to me due to my personal situation.
Best decision EVER!!!!
Regardless of company, an Engineer. especially SWE and the like have to stay on their toes with their skill set.
You may feel comfortable at Juniper and that your skills are OK, but I guarantee you you're on the hot seat at all times.
The rolling riffs WILL continue and you don't want to be caught with your pants down....Pants that can take 6 months plus of prep to pull up again.
1.) Keep your skills fresh. ALWAYS! Take classes if need be. Start yesterday. You're on the clock (riff clock is above your head)!
2.) Prep for interviews and go at it HARD! No laziness! No excuses!
Guys/gals. It's actually quite unbelievable. When you land at a FANG or their ilk and compare to how it was at Juniper. It's like a ginormous day/night difference! So VAST as to be almost BE an absurd joke. After you get over the tremendous compensation improvement, you'll see a work culture that ACTUALLY gets things done and improves you as a "relevant" worker. The toxicity/office politics is reduced by UNIVERSAL levels. The daily stress of monthly stealth layoffs is gone. It's like holding your breath forever and then RELEASING it with a scream!
You'll beat yourself up, thinking WHY o' WHY didn't I make the jump sooner! Years of suffering that could have been eliminated with some modest effort.
SO DO IT & BE FREE ONCE AND FOR ALL!! TRAIN, TRAIN, TRAIN!!!
XbwbLKc-yvw: We'll I would say its not too different from other interviews, but definitely for FANG, with the scale we have distributed systems is a critical piece.
I was lucky enough to have taken a class at school which worked through it and worked on EVO which was kinda distributed.
Never the less, I assume either of them wont help you much. I would suggest you to work on things after work for fun and deploy them, or pick up an open source project and keep contributing. Use AWS/GCP/Azure etc and understand the art of scalability.
XbwbLKc-flg: Agree with your point of view. Can you tell me how did you prepare to get in FANG? I prepared for 6 months but failed at FAA, did not interview in N and G. I ended up with a Tier 2 company but that too is much better than Juniper. Better pay, better work. FANGs expect a good knowledge of distributed systems, which obviously folks working in Junos cannot have.
People said grass on the other side is always greener.
But when I quit Juniper and moved to FANG, its really green. I will never regret it.
With the tenure I spent at Juniper, in less than half of the time in FANG I learned a lot more and I keep learning everyday. Coming into work is exciting, doing the work is fun.
Dont quit unless you have a job, dont even think about it. Unless you are really getting burnt out.
I prepared for 6 months, got into 2 FANGS, and other offers.
Juniper was way depressing, doing no real work and becoming less confident everyday and obsolete.
If you are working in Junos and have not kept up with industry trends, please note that your skill sets are obsolete. It is extremely hard to get a job without proper skills. I was in the same boat a few years ago. My advice would be to upgrade your skills by taking relevant courses in Coursera, Lynda etc. I have heard Juniper these days provides free Lynda subscription to its employees. Also, you leetcode/hackerrank to practice questions that are generally asked in coding interviews. It is very stressful to do all this with your regular job and other commitments, however, there is really no choice. If you get laid off, it will be very hard to get another job and being unemployed for long is no fun.
I left Juniper a few years ago, but it took 6+ months of preparation in order for me to crack interviews. Even then I failed at FAANG interviews. However, life is much better outside of Juniper if you end up in a proper software company. Due to the way code is structured in other software companies, the grunt work in Junos (e.g. endless bug fixing) is gone. Most software companies pay more than Juniper, so it is a win-win situation i.e. higher pay, higher quality work, less stress.
I hope this helps, and I am sorry for re-posting some important information ...
Unless you plan to retire now, find a job first, then quit your current job. If you think you may get let go or will be out of a job for whatever reason start looking now.
It's much easier to get hired while employed.
If you plan to retire, take paid time off, then quit.
If you plan to look for a job:
Update your resume(s), portfolio and cover letters - tailored to different jobs you will seek
Build your contacts / go though your Linkedin contacts to reconnect and network tirelessly
Get recommendations, reviews and testimonials for you and your skills posted on Linkedin
Create accounts / post your resume and search for jobs (here are some useful job sites):
LinkkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/jobs
Glassdoor - https://www.glassdoor.com/index.htm
Indeed - https://www.indeed.com/
Monster - https://www.monster.com/account/homepage/
US-Gov - https://www.usajobs.gov/
https://www.careeronestop.org/JobSearch/FindJobs/find-jobs.aspx
https://www.usa.gov/find-a-job
Good luck, and if you are not looking, please help others by writing reviews, connecting and sharing leads and staying in touch. You never know when you will need someone's help.
Thank You
I worked at juniper for just under a year an FTE, and quit soon after. I was approached for a year long contract at one of my goal companies, and after much deliberation, i took the risk. Its been a couple of months now and I can tell you that it was likely one of the best decisions i have ever made. Although I don't quite yet have the assurance of an FTE, i have learned more and grown more professionally in my short time here than my entire tenure at Juniper. Its amazing what working with a team that supports you and all share the same vision can do for your personal growth. Going into a workplace where i am excited to work and and see my coworkers and learn every day is an absolute game changer for me and i could not be happier.
I personally believe you are in charge of your own happiness and it is not out of your control.
my two cents.
That would be a foolish thing to do!
Keep the job and study hard to prep for technical interviews with other companies.
That means sacrifice! Sacrifice in time...for your job, family, hobby/free time. Weekends and after work for prepping. 3-6 months of hard prep.
You will be perpetually tired, anguished and impatient but if you don't train for the championship fight, a FANG interview will humiliate you and additionally penalize you ONE year from applying again. So train to WIN and for that you'll need MONTHS of prep.
Remember that it's not that hard to get an interview with a FANG with a recruiter, but it WILL be challenging passing the tech questions which have to be nearly 100% satisfactory. The most respected one at the moment is Leetcode but there are others. Google this information and look at support forums with people that exclusively talk about beating these interviews--no different than an SAT prep, this time just geared to FANG.
So yeah, don't quit your job unless your job s---s so much energy out of you that you really can't prep. That would be the only reason to quit. But you won't conclude this until you've been prepping for several weeks. And please don't arrogantly think you're all that and wing an interview with a FANG! You will get eaten alive!
Employment aside, your tech skills should always be FRESH! Depending on Juniper group, you could be eroding to irrelevance (or not). So it could be an imperative thing to move for long-term career survival. After all, how can you convince FB or G that your legacy support coding will help them in building their product? Careers as an SWE are short due to technical irrelevance, so you must be constantly stepping up like a musical artist (ie you're 80's metal won't be relevant in an R&B world).
So start first by prepping and then taking it from there whether your obligations to prep can be serviced enough with a job in hand.
Good luck!
I am assuming you want to get a job and then quit. If you feel you are the smartest person in the room/building you are sitting in, then you need to quit Juniper... Although I am surprised they were able to attract RW - Infrastructure Architect who is a really smart guy... But there is ton of work being done outside Juniper and there are a ton of smart people to learn from outside Juniper.
Unless you plan to retire, find a job first, then quit.
It's much easier to get hired while employed.
If you plan to retire, take paid time off. Then quit.