Great Development, But Top Management Irresponsive
Pros
- Great work life balance + support system if you're in the right team - Flexible working hours (expected to be online 12pm-4pm ET, other hours can be flexible with discussion with manager) - Great incentives for high performers. Great performers are rewarded with frequent high raises and promotions. - Great place for young professionals looking to develop and make connections. Everyone is very nice and have interesting hobbies and are always down to hang out! (In DC/LA offices only, avoid the SF office at all costs it's kinda dead.) - Amazing high-impact, high-value data/policy work that is critical to various government agencies. Have scouted and interviewed with other places while I worked here, and the level of involvement in these kinds of work is unmatched, especially if you're a young professional without a graduate degree. - Great technical training programs. You are trained for 2 weeks as you start with the company to learn SAS, which is a Python-like programming language that's very commonly used for large datasets. Highly sought-after skill in many companies if you intend to leave in the future. - Very friendly to international employees. Great visa program that skips the H1B lottery and great support for green card process. - Most diverse place I've worked at (40% internationals, great gender breakdown even in top management)
Cons
- Top management does not listen to employees and provides mostly lip service - Questionable hiring practices. Low-rated candidates often make it past review. have had problematic, misogynistic candidates who somehow got hired. - Lack of management training for middle managers. Mostly trains junior employee up to become managers, however, very little training is provided leading to burnout and mismanaged teams in places that lead to low retention in certain teams. - Diversity efforts, while with some success, acts more like a lip service by top management instead of addressing key diversity issues like not hiring enough in certain local demographics around office areas. - Lack of clear guidance on how each employee has to perform at every level, giving too much power to (untrained) managers to provide feedback. - Weird pay structure for remote employees. You are paid a base + locality rate. If you work remote, you get paid a low flat rate regardless if you live in a high cost or low cost city, or even if you live in the same city as where an Acumen office is located. Effort by employees to rectify this issue was half-listened to and no effort by management has been made to rectify employee concerns so much so that some decided to leave when the policy took place.
