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Fender Musical Instruments

Is this your company?

Working at Fender is cool... until you realize it has all the negatives of a top heavy corporation. - Anonymous employee Fender Musical Instruments Employee Review

2.0
Aug 2, 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Beautiful location and building, monthly bagel Friday, yearly family D-backs games, PB & Jam lunch sessions (when they did them - haven't had one in a while). Employee instrument sales. Good co-workers for the most part. Family friendly/flexible.

Cons

Lack of opportunity to advance. Those without guitar experience or that don't have connections are at a big disadvantage, especially. Good workers and poor workers all get treated and paid the same. Poor behavior is tolerated and not addressed. Low pay. Poor communication. Top heavy. Larry Thomas, the CEO is out of touch with the people keeping the company going, as are most of the people at the top. He seems to think he's a celebrity and uses a company paid private jet while the peons can't get 401k matching or a raise worth a darn. He didn't even show up to the company Christmas party, now what does that tell you? The finance dept. recently acquired all of KMC Musicorp's (which Fender bought out several years ago) workload which means more duties, for the same pay. Morale is at all time low, employees are stretched thin, and management and supervisors are very out of touch with their staff, especially the ones that are taking them through this very long and difficult transition. Even new staff is unhappy. Long time employees are leaving at a record pace. Rumors persist of the company not doing well. The squashed IPO is good evidence of that.

Explore other reviews about Fender Musical Instruments

5.0
Aug 21, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible schedule and good environment

Cons

It's hard to get a good rise

3.0
Mar 23, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- super chill enviroment - great collegues - huge rock and roll culture - not super demanding depending on yearly projects - lots of fun activities year-round - great place to start your career; use it as a launchpad

Cons

- poor leadership; truly, IDK where they get these leaders from - you wont get any help, expect to be thrown in the deep end - frontline workers complain a lot, makes it hard to implement things

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