If Asked I Couldn't Honestly Tell You to Work Here - Anonymous employee DataSift Employee Review

2.0
11 Dec 2014
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Team members are great and fun to be around. I've built a lot of friendships - Free lunch and snacks are nice - The opportunities for what's possible with the product are incredible.

Cons

- Executive Management team is overly controlling. - There is a lot of political work required to gain support for projects that are often halted after they get going. - Not a lot of room for upward career growth - Very reactive planning process, constant fire-fighting and impossible deadlines

avatar
DataSift Response
11y
Thanks for sharing your feedback. I'm really glad you are optimistic about the business and have made friends of your work colleagues. There aren't quick fixes to your critique but I will make sure the executive team understands the frustration you've shared. In the meantime, I'd suggest you reach out to a senior manager you feel comfortable with and share this feedback. The more people are involved, the more likely it is to get corrected and improve.

Explore other reviews about DataSift

5.0
15 Jun 2015
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

One of the more interesting places I've worked. Lots of opportunity to carve out what you want to do - a young company without a lot of bureaucratic overhead. If you're looking for a place with rigid oversight, keep looking. If you're interested in somewhere you can explore new aspects of your career and learn quickly, then you'll be happy here. Work/life balance is taken seriously here. If something comes up that needs your time or attention away from work, HR and Management will support you. Managers are encouraged to keep employees from burning out, and there's always something fun going on (Friday socialization in the office, monthly outings, etc). Folks here are great about personal growth, training, and continuing education. If you want to learn something new, they'll support you. This is a big plus in my book.

Cons

The challenge of working with teams in the UK, New York and San Francisco can mean some days are long, or sometimes meetings fall at inconvenient times. Communication is email-heavy, but that beats 7am conference calls. As the company grows, growing pains are natural. Some roles can feel like they need just a bit more than one person, but not quite two, and that's tough. Sometimes it feels like there's nothing to do, followed by a wave of far-too-much. But that's life in a startup, right?

2
2.0
17 Jan 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Hot space, product works, agreement with Facebook

Cons

No front end on the product requires client to be a big data specialist and as such can't be used at the desk across the business easily. Horrible culture, arrogant managers, cast system mentality, overpriced, several unqualified managers that are flat out comical

8
avatar
DataSift Response
10y
I don’t know when you left us, so it’s hard to respond to your specifics without this context. You are right, that 2015 was a big year of transition for us, with Twitter departing as a partner and Facebook (in addition to our 20+ existing partners) partnering with us. I wish “catching a break” was as easy as you make it sound. Reality is: the harder you work, the luckier you get. You are 100% correct on your comment re: “no front end.. can’t be used across the business easily”. We’re don’t serve end-users directly. Think of DataSift as the "Intel Inside” the social analytics industry. Our technology is embedded into commercial applications (some are here http://datasift.com/partners/) that serve end brands. This gives us the ability to partner with a social network and rapidly serve every brand on the planet through our network of partners. Your comments re: unqualified/arrogant managers is tough to answer in the generic but noted. With offices in the UK (primarily engineering) and US (primarily sales/marketing), we have different cultures and historically, different values. Job #1 for me has been to bridge the divide between our offices/functions and rally around a common set of values (that define our behaviour/attitudes) and objectives (that define our priorities). Thanks for the feedback and best wishes in your next venture.
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All