Work Life Balance and No Passion - Software Engineer Garmin Employee Review

3.0
7 Feb 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Garmin is the kind of place that you go to work when you want something safe, with adequate pay, decent benefits, and a 40 hr a week load because your life emphasis is outside the workplace. The headquarters location in suburban Kansas City ironically mirrors this sentiment. A suburban utopia of highly rated schools and from a national perspective- relatively affordable housing opportunities make an ideal location for the family oriented employee.

Cons

Garmin is not the place to work if you want to light the world on fire, want upward mobility, financial reward or future opportunity. The future prospectus is murky as portable navigation devices have fallen out of favor, forcing Garmin to look to emerging and third world markets to make up the slack, shift the identity of the company to a fitness-oriented focus, and deal with the ever increasing competition in what was historically their exclusive space from giants such as Apple, Google and Microsoft. If you're awesome and you know it, look elsewhere.

Explore other reviews about Garmin

5.0
20 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

People are great, work balance is fair and fulfilling

Cons

Not the flashiest benefits like some tech companies have

3.0
3 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good benefits and work life balance. It's a good culture and I've never worked at a place where your immediate peers are this helpful and pleasant to work with, even across teams and offices. If you want to just come in and do just what is required for your job and go home with the knowledge you have a stable job, this is the perfect place to work. I'd only recommend working here if you just want a job, but don't care about a career.

Cons

There is poor career advancement, especially if you aren't male. Leadership does not care about leading people. The RTO has made working here less appealing. The excuse that you can't collaborate unless you are in the same building makes no sense when you work with people in 6 different countries. It is about control and appearances, all due to incredibly poor senior leadership strategies. The pay is also low and so is the quality of the software you work on. Leadership likes to talk quality, but they like fast and cheap. They will not support you in actual software quality nor implement changes to improve it. The same issues happen over and over without improvement.

9
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