Some brilliant engineers and good place to learn but bloated and incompetent management
Pros
Force10 is a good place to learn; there are some really smart engineers here and you can learn a lot if you make the effort; it is a good resume builder for sure. Further, you have access to a lot of cutting edge equipment that allows you to learn new technology. Also, the pay is pretty decent and competitive. The company is located in the heart of Silicon Valley right by other networking giants like Cisco and Brocade. Another positive is that the company just got bought by Dell so there hopefully will be a lot more investment towards the technical functions and a cut in the bloated management.
Cons
BLOATED MANAGEMENT is the worst. There are way too many people in upper management. Nepotism seems to be very high where it seems like friends bring other friends into high management positions when it is clearly obvious they are not qualified and don't do anything on a day-to-day basis. If you ask someone what they do at the company and they say "strategy" - that means they do nothing! All of these people are riding on the backs of a few smart engineers who are doing all the work! There are a few brilliant engineers within engineering/development/support that are literally holding the entire company up. My guess is these engineers are just here to learn and will move on to better things eventually in which case Force10 will really be in trouble. Some advice for Dell is to take control - get rid of bloated management immediately - especially the management who have no technical knowledge; they are just a waste. I know of one director in one of the technical departments that doesn't even know what a router is. Wow!!!!! is all I can say! How would you feel if you were a super smart engineer and had to report to this guy who is probably making twice your salary and doesn't even know what a router is?