A fish rots from head down - Staff Software Engineer Juniper Networks Employee Review

2.0
Apr 18, 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It used to be a place where very challenging engineering problems were attempted and solved. Not any more. It is stuck in it's own past and slowly withering away. Decent pay: Salary could be good depending on which companies you compare with. Base salary is high, 401K match and ESPP is good. Be aware when comparing offers No stock refreshes. If you get one (Top 20% of people or less) it will be peanuts (10% of base salary vesting over 4 years) Bonus percentage has been consistently going down. Do not assume you will get 100% of the bonus in offer, these days you get around 50%.

Cons

Very Bad code base ------------------------ This is code written with 20+ years of history. Same code base, patch works, reworks, one junos supporting all platforms without any modern development practices (not even a single automated unit test, only system level regression tests which barely cover enough scenarios and hardly catch anything more granular than feature din't work), because of one junos supporting all platforms code base is extremely complex, and any change will have too many unforseen/unknown side effects. Bad people policies ----------------------- No earned or defined PTOs. They claim(BS) during offer they are progressive and there are no limits on PTO's and you can take as many as you want. In reality two things happen due to unlimited PTO 1. You lost ability to en cash pay if you don't take enough leaves. 2. Every leave is a haggle with u'r manager. Most often managers will not give 15-20 leaves per year which was what it used to be before the policy. If it was truly positive intention, they could publish average number of leaves a engineer is taking company wide/per manager or say every engineer must take or manager must ensure 18 leaves per year. No. They don't do such things, 2-face. Take maternity or paternity leave, assume u'r bonus is 0. Doesn't policy from higher ups should avoid this? Again paternity leave is a haggle. No diversity ------------- Its a very indian, chinese dominant company. In engineering >70%. Majority of managers are Indian. Hardly any women as expectation to work late nights, weekends is very high. Bad technical decisions ----------------------------- It takes years to do any decent size project, due to extremely complicated code base. Couldn't catch up with arista or at the least learn or copy from best practices even though it happened right infront of juniper. Routing BU ---------------- Makes most of the cash. Good market share ISP, Enterprise market. Only reason still company is around. Switching BU --------------- Stay away. Very bad Software development Sr.Director manages this team. Poor work culture. No idea about what a modern data center needs are. Security BU ------------- Stay away. Constant layoffs. Doesn't make much revenue. Palo alto networks etc will ensure this BU doesn't survive for long.

Explore other reviews about Juniper Networks

5.0
Jun 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

great company to work at! lovely intern program

Cons

n/a, i really liked it

5.0
May 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

At Juniper Networks, the team environment was very supportive, with engineers who were approachable and willing to help, which made it easier to ramp up and contribute. The company also emphasizes collaboration and learning, creating a space where interns can ask questions and grow without feeling blocked.

Cons

The onboarding process could feel slower than expected, with some initial delays in gaining access to tools and systems needed to start contributing.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All