5 Best and 5 Worst Places to Work

While the IT industry enjoys an unemployment rate that’s half that of the general workforce, not all IT companies are created equal. Sure, it might be easier to land a high-paying job in IT if you’ve got the skills, but what about culture, benefits and other perks? Will you be happy where you land? Based on anonymous, employee-submitted reviews from job search and career management site Glassdoor, we’ve put together the five best and worst IT companies to work for.

The Seattle, Wash.-based networking technology and solutions firm has doubled in size in the last five years, but has maintained a focus on its culture, as one anonymous reviewer states. “… the company culture is one of integrity, and one that values the employee as a human, not as a cog in the machine… F5 is very consciously protecting the company culture,” the employee says.

The networking and unified communications juggernaut does receive high marks for flexibility and work-life balance, but compensation lags and, as one anonymous reviewer says, there’s not a unified vision for the company across varying business units.

A mess of bureaucracy among middle-management and a lack of advancement opportunities are stifling innovation, according to reviewers.

The Internet and cable television provider has the distinction of earning Consumerist’s Worst Company in America title for 2014 regardless of industry, beating out competitors like Monsanto and Walmart. The proposed merger with Time-Warner Cable didn’t help. One anonymous reviewer says, “The only ‘pro’ to working at Comcast is the super-cheap cable and Internet.” Uh, congratulations?