Once an amazing company, now on the trajectory of TiVo
Pros
The quality of lunch is absolutely amazing. Each rise on Glassdoor rating corresponds to getting a new caterer. Good food makes people happy. Los Gatos neighborhood is equally amazing. There's very little traffic. You'll always find plenty of empty parking spots at Roku throughout the day. Roku feels like a mini-Netflix without the competitiveness and stress of Netflix. We are occupying their old building and you can still see remnants of Netflix here. It's also just a block from Netflix so it's relatively easy to visit them if you know someone there. Any random recruiter there is also happy to eat lunch with Roku employees, just shoot them a LinkedIn request. You can easily take a beautiful short stroll or run at the Los Gatos creek trail, which many employees do during lunch time. Roku's salary is one of the highest in the valley, though obviously not as high as Netflix. Employees get an amazing number of Roku options, albeit unknown value at the time of hire. As another reviewer pointed out, Roku is like a midwest company. People are very laid back. You come into work and you leave work at work, period. There's no performance review so it's stress free and easy to do some work, have long coffee breaks with your coworkers, and get paid. Loyalty and tenure really pays big time in this company. In fact there are so many old timers who do minimal work and they get to rest and vest comfortably. As long as you stay quiet and not rock the boat, you'll have a very successful tenure at Roku. There is a of freedom to do what you want to do, partly because most managers are quite dated and don't have much clue about what employees are really doing. Also, Roku gives really big fancy titles, several levels above your previous job, which makes us feel great about ourselves.
Cons
No 401K matching and subpar plans with Fidelity. No diversity program, no MLK, no day care, no culture. There is no manager training, no employee development, no personal improvement, no educational program, no open office hours. Consistent with other reviewers, health insurance is below subpar. Roku recently switched insurance, but the new one has the same high deductibles and high costs as the previous insurance company. It is true that you get an amazing number of options. But over the last few years the strike price has risen by mere pennies. A company that takes over 10 years to rise to only a billion dollar valuation is bad news for mid stage investors and employees alike, so unless you joined a decade ago the options are worth close to nothing. True that there is a big scramble to catch up to competition, but the gap is only getting wider and wider. Roku's big chance has long passed and it's just a matter of time before big competition like Amazon clobbers Roku with cheaper and better products. Roku is very top-down and employees have very little ways of propping up their ideas and opinions upwards. Unlike Netflix, there is not really a culture to speak of, and Roku employees in general lack pride, lack passion, and treat Roku like a government job. 9 to 5 and people go home. The HR says there's no performance review because the CEO hates it. The reality is that the CEO all the way downwards, is allergic to changes and criticisms. There is no way to provide feedbacks upwards without the fear of retaliation. Those who try to rock the boat to change, tend to not last very long. A recurring theme is that there will be no raises or promotions until someone threatens to quit or actually quits. Not surprisingly Roku's attrition rate is one of the highest in the valley.
