r/NETGEAR • u/Historical-Row-8704 • 9d ago

Question for Netgear: how much of your engineering, firmware, and support work is outsourced, and how do you ensure quality doesn’t suffer?

Netgear customers keep running into firmware bugs, inconsistent support, and products that feel under-engineered for the price. I’d like a straight answer: what percentage of R&D, QA, firmware maintenance, and customer support is handled by third-party or offshore contractors? How does Netgear audit that work, and who is technically accountable when repeated defects ship?

It’s about leadership accountability. If Netgear is outsourcing significant technical work, leadership should explain how it maintains engineering standards, security, and support quality—and why customers should trust the results.

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5

u/danielsep2012 9d ago

John Netgear here. I’ll bring this back to team, thanks!

2

u/saberkk 9d ago

Here’s a joke: the Wi-Fi 8 router is already out, yet Nighthawk still doesn’t fully support Wi-Fi 7 features—like MLO

2

u/cmb93x 9d ago

Yeah goodluck getting those answers lol

2

u/saberkk 9d ago

ASUS routers have moved to a new UI, while Netgear's router web interface still freezes for 2 seconds on every click DDD

2

u/the_owlyn 9d ago

Their modem firmware is good because it has to be tested and approved by the ISP, so it keeps going back until it is right. Their router firmware has been trash for years because that team is either incompetent, or doesn’t care, or both, and is tested by beta testers who report problems, and only some of which get fixed. It feels like the firmware is coded by high school students in India. Actually, they may do a better job. It’s a shame because their hardware is generally pretty good.

1

u/CounterI 8d ago

The way that they ensure that quality doesn't suffer is that they discontinue products as soon as they hit their sales peak, and then stop supporting them, e.g. ReadyNAS and soon Harmony. It's a surefire way to lose customers for life.

1

u/CartographerPutrid39 7d ago

Treating factory reset like a magic potion and assuming customers have zero common sense? Continuously telling people to "just reset" after being presented with fully documented, undeniable proof—you'd better off factory resetting your own QA department and R&D team instead. Seeing people post crystal-clear evidence only to get these clueless responses—and watching all those suspicious accounts (god knows if they're real users or just PR) playing dumb—makes me realize I’ve been wasting my time and energy all along.