55 Windows Systems Administrator Reviews

Windows Systems Administrator at Harris Corp.

Please give us a one liner to describe this review.

"High-stress, high-demand, micro-management, finger-pointing."

What do you like about working at Harris Corp.?

"My peers. There were a lot of good people in the rand-and-file."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Don't. Although there are a lot of great people there who are in the rank-and-file, and there is a relatively small number of good managers, the corporate culture doesn't allow for independent thinking. They call it insubordination when you disagree with the higher-ups, even your own manager. They've even counseled employees, who never even knew they'd been counseled. They discovered it in their performance record after the fact. They don't pay very well; they don't reward hard work; the raises are pitiful, if you get one at all; they regularly pass qualified people over for promotions and hire from outside instead; they don't care how many hours you have to work because they're understaffed. Maybe 20 or 30 years ago Harris was a good place to work. But not so today. They are subpar, and downright unethical in some respects."

What don't you like about working at Harris Corp.?

"Harris fosters a culture of high-stress, high-demand operations where there is 0% work/life balance--and they don't care. The average work week in IT was 60 hours, with 70, 80, or even 100 hours in a week not uncommon. One of the perks is the 9/80 work schedule (work 9 hours per day for 9 business days, then get the 10 day--Friday--off), but the IT VP stated in writing that this perk was a privilege and you could have no expectation of actually getting your day off. If anything goes wrong, even if it was an honest mistake or a problem caused by circumstances out of your control, the first thing they do is look for a scapegoat, and then you are counseled. Most of the managers are micro-managers who expect you to check in with them every time you do something and ask for status multiple times per day, sometimes even every 15 minutes when there is an unexpected outage. On the other hand, they rarely spare the time to help you when you need it; essentially, they tell you to get the job done and do what you gotta do without giving you the authority to accomplish anything; and then they counsel you because of you weren't able to get it done on time, which is usually the result of trying to negotiate with other teams or business units who won't let you work on their servers. The maintenance windows were ridiculous: Sundays from 7:00 AM-1:00 PM and Tuesday and Wednesday from 2:00 AM-5:00 AM once per month. Every project is approached in a half-a**ed manner. There's no planning and not enough time allocated to implement; there's no accountability for the managers; and the project managers don't seem to know what they're doing."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Get it together. Your people are your most valuable asset, so you need to treat them like people--not numbers on a spreadsheet. Hire more staff so your employees aren't working ridiculous hours. Build accountability into every project--for yourself, too. If you're going to present a mandate to implement specific technology to the organization, enforce it. Business units should not dictate the project or implementation schedule, pushing it off indefinitely while the people who are assigned to perform the implementation are criticized and reprimanded because the timeline is slipping. Stop pointing your fingers every time something goes wrong. It's IT--not basket weaving. Sometimes bad things happen due to circumstances beyond your control and sometimes people make mistakes. We're human. Don't throw good people under the bus just so you can stroke your own ego and tell yourself that you solved the problem. Hire people with real talent and keep the people who work hard and strive to do the right thing. You'll eliminate the high turnover of employees in the IT department because--hello!--IT professionals don't need you. You need them. They can go get another job."

Windows Systems Administrator at MPS Group

Please give us a one liner to describe this review.

"Very challenging, always a good opportunity to learn something new."

What do you like about working at MPS Group?

"Plenty of opportunity to excel and a multitude of challenges to prove your worth."

Do you have any tips for others interviewing with this company?

"Ensure you negotiate your salary before hand and do not accept hourly pay."

What don't you like about working at MPS Group?

"Once you are on a contract it is difficult to change, regardless of your experience."

What suggestions do you have for management?

"Place people in positions that match their skills. I am more of a system administrator versus a desktop engineer.."

Windows Systems Administrator at Sonoma State University

Windows Systems Administrator at Freddie Mac

Please give us a one liner to describe this review.

"It was a very rewarding job."

Windows Systems Administrator at Enterprise Solutions

Windows Systems Administrator at Alstom

Windows Systems Administrator at EVault

Windows Systems Administrator at Credit One Bank

Windows Systems Administrator at Cels Enterprises

Windows Systems Administrator at CitiGroup

Windows Systems Administrator at Harris Corp.

Please give us a one liner to describe this review.

"Integrity and commitment to excellence."

Windows Systems Administrator at Marsh & McLennan

Windows Systems Administrator at EchoStar

Windows Systems Administrator at OneNeck

Windows Systems Administrator at IBM

Please give us a one liner to describe this review.

"Great overall experience and exposure to huge commercial infrastructures."