Keyword: settle - Team Lead Garmin Employee Review

3.0
26 Aug 2022
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Generally speaking, lower-to-middle-management are great, thoughtful, engaged. Benefits are awesome, particularly the insurance coverage and premiums. Garmin HR talk about total compensation a lot, and they're not wrong. The benefits really do help make up for one of my cons below (the pay).

Cons

Pay: below industry standards. HR will really drive home the value of our benefits when you interview so that the lower pay feels justified. Diversity: Lots of great employee resource groups, but Garmin leadership has a very conflict-averse, controversy-averse mindset. They will not acknowledge your demographic except through the respective ERG's distribution group. Zero interest in taking a stand or making statements about anything for fear of alienating customers. Policy: black-and-white & applied unilaterally. Rarely room for nuance or exceptions, even when there's a reasonable justification. Garmin's answer to complaints about this is to write certain sections of the handbook so that exceptions (when allowed) are "at management's discretion." Roll the dice to see if you get an authoritarian boss or one who's more flexible and empathetic. Gaslighting: What is promised, guaranteed, or committed to one day will be reversed frequently, and in ways where leadership pretends as if they never used phrasing that was an explicit commitment or promise. Leadership never admits to mistakes, lapses in judgment, or errors and instead just frames these 'pivots' as changing due to business needs. Punitive treatment of former employees: Garmin's worst trait is how they treat (many? most?) former employees. People who leave the company in good standing with great performance reviews & stellar metrics and who follow Garmin's process to ensure rehireability are often flagged as NOT rehireable after they leave. I know this to be fact on two occasions and suspect (but can't confirm) this for a dozen others. (The two I know about even left for personal reasons. [Spouse relocation and family illness] When their situations changed and they tried to return to Garmin, HR would not even give them a pre-screen call. I personally requested interviews with them and was told they were not rehireable. When I asked why, HR declined to share and even advised me I was not permitted to share their rehireability status with them.)

Explore other reviews about Garmin

5.0
23 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great work life balance Good people

Cons

Lower salary compared to market

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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