Viasat reviews

I have been at Viasat for nearly 20 years. The company has changed tremendously over that time. In the early days it was like a family and the top execs were admired since they worked along side everyone else and appreciated personal sacrifices employees made for the company. This is no longer the case. The executives have lost touch. When COVID hit, they promptly laid-off or furloughed hundreds of people and announced a salary freeze. Everyone could understand the rationale given by the execs at the time. But then the annual report was published in early August and it showed they accepted huge bonuses, stock awards and salary increases in June, just two months after the lay-off. Every colleague I talked with is outraged to see how well they were taken care of while the rest of us were asked to sacrifice and some of our most respected colleagues were shown the door. To add to the frustration, they released a surprisingly good financial report for the April-June 2020 quarter, which is not consistent with the message they gave to justify the lay-offs. Are companies across the country not being asked to do everything possible to keep their workforce employed during these tough times? Decisions by Viasat executives are clearly being made to maximize financial performance and increase their personal wealth. All execs could have taken a 50% bonus cut and kept a hundred or more Viasat family members employed for the remainder of the year while still earning multi-million dollar compensations. To them, cash clearly wins over compassion. Latest rumor is they are preparing for another lay-off and elimination or reduction of benefits to further optimize company financial performance. Why? Viasat is not in financial hardship. They are doing this while many projects are short staffed and managers are not allowed to hire and constantly pushed to be more productive with fewer people. I am personally conflicted because my team and low to mid level supervisors are great. The attitude of the top execs is now flowing down so I am actively looking for other opportunities as are many of my colleagues.

These are just a few things I've noticed over the years. I truly don't mean to come off as a disgruntled former employee. These are just things that someone considering this company should know about upfront and be able to wrap their heads around. These cons are probably no different than any other company of equal size so please don't think I'm picking on this organization unduly. As the title says, it's a big company that's getting bigger...and with that all the political and bureaucratic trappings that go along with it. It's getting harder and harder to feel like you accomplish anything there due to all the procedures, processes and politics that seem to be a requirement in a large company. As with any company this size, there's office politics involved. If you're an engineer, you're especially susceptible. If you want to stay technical and not move into any kind of management, you'll eventually be shown the door simply due to the fact that as your salary grows, so does the bulls-eye on your back when cost-cutting is necessitated. If you're a young person especially straight out of school, you're golden because they can mold you and convert you to their way of thinking more easily; but more importantly, you're cheap. If you're an experienced person, you better be an expert or guru in something in order to be valued. Even then, you're longevity is not guaranteed. They don't think twice about letting someone go who has 35+ years with the company and still contribute. I've seen it done on more than one occasion. They definitely would rather take on more risk with younger, cheaper personnel than less risk with older, more experienced personnel. If you're someone who doesn't "play the game" of politics well, isn't good at managing up the food chain as well as down, truly tries to do the right thing but has the propensity to be perceived as a "pot stirrer", speaks his/her mind without regard to political perceptions (even if you're right), then this is NOT the place for you. At least in some disciplines, they do tend to design by the seat of their pants, putting only the minimal amount of engineering diligence into product design as they can. This is great for the financials and anyone can understand that but it leaves the product open to failure and liability. Management in general seems to always say all the right things in a public environment but behind closed doors, it is perceived to be a different story. One of the latest mantras was "It's OK to fail but fail quickly and move on". Everyone had a really hard time believing that because too many times a failure led to a reassignment, downgrade or outright termination.