DataRobot reviews

2.9

28% would recommend to a friend

(578 total reviews)
avatar

Debanjan Saha

32% approve of CEO

21% positive business outlook

DataRobot has an employee rating of 2.9 out of 5 stars, based on 578 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The DataRobot employee rating is 21% below average for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

578 reviews
3.0
Jun 11, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

If you're getting into software development and want to touch some of the newest technologies, play in the world of cloud services, work in python or hone your chops as a devop, you'll find lots of opportunities to improve your skills. Due to the flat management structure, you can often just start doing whatever the task is you think is important and become an "expert" in it. Even if you're not really an expert, chances are nobody else cares about it so you get to be the go to person (for good or bad). If you're the type of person that works very well independently and likes to set your own agenda you'll probably feel comfortable in the working environment. Don't expect a lot of communications, and you'll probably be making a lot of things up as you go. At least 80% of the people you'll work for are great folks, they will often spend hours working with you to make sure you get what you need accomplished and the 1:1 time is a great way to keep knowledge transfer and understanding at rock solid levels.

Cons

1. Leadership: Leadership is not a thing here, perhaps we should call them "chaperones" as their only job in life is to make sure we are not too angry and that we don't hurt ourselves. In general, we're like a tech version of Lord of the Flies. We are stranded on this strange island and we're trying to each govern our own little teams. Some of us are good at it, some of us are not. But those that are not often are louder so they win. 2. Lack of Design Design documents are left short, often intentionally vague, and get "sign off" by all teams (who don't really always understand what they're signing off on). This leads to mis-communication, unexpected behavior and supportability problems. 3. Technical Debt We generate technical debt faster than we generate solutions. Many of the development decisions are made by amateurs and they will defend them as "it was a good choice at the time." Nope, it was a bad choice from the start but you're too green to see it. 4. Tons of Meetings If you're like me and find mornings the best time to write code, you'll be disappointed. Usually we've got meetings until noon (Boston Time at least), that will be team stand ups, 1:1's, company meetings, team weekly meetings, project review meetings, sprint meetings, retro meetings, etc. Usually separated by a half hour or full hour so just went you get back into the swing of things...oops, another meeting. 5. Tribal Knowledge Rules Our teams are not great at writing stuff down. This means lots of additional meetings and 1:1 "pairing sessions" to transfer tribal knowledge so others now have the value. They see this as "valuable pairing time" vs. "if I just wrote down how things worked I could get more work done."

5.0
Apr 20, 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-Incredibly talented co-workers -Mission driven teammates -Autonomy and trust -Limited micro-management -Care for the employees futures DataRobot is most certainly chalk full of people who are incredibly bright, talented, and leaders in their respective fields. This also can create some competition and some negative attitudes amongst teams, but the overwhelming majority of individual contributors are superstars. This makes tackling difficult challenges easy when you can lean on team mates you know have the capabilities and talents to contribute. It can also lead to people getting stretched thin. Another big positive about DataRobot is that you won't get a ton of direction here. People are hired into most roles because they are expected to be able to perform at them, so there isn't a lot of hand holding. For self-starters, this is an excellent environment. You can jump right in on day 1 and contribute. For others that require a lot of direction and hand holding to "ramp up", it can be a challenging course. Some teams are better at onboarding people than others, but you can expect to be doing a lot of self-learning when you start at DataRobot. This to me, is a positive. I would rather have trial by fire than endless corporate trainings. There's also never a lack of work or projects to get involved in. This can again be a negative for some people as it's easy to get over-eager and over-extended in your commitments at DataRobot. For those who want to be busy and stay busy, this is definitely a great place. Hard work is recognized and rewarded.

Cons

It's a startup that is going through some growing pains right now with COVID and everything else going on in the world. It's also not the type of place for people with "work-life balance" as a top priority. Again, this is a startup and not for everyone. If you want to hop on board the rocketship as it's taking off, you need to be prepared to strap in and hold on tight. This is not a normal 9-5 job. There are lots of things that will drag you into the late hours and the weekends when you're on a big project. The idea is that you believe in the company and the mission enough that you want to be there in the weeds, pushing things forward and accomplishing goals. If you don't want to put your whole self into your role and your career, then this may not be the place for you. There's lots of negative things being said about how much the company values employees, etc. There is zero question that the company values their employees incredibly high. The amount of investment they have put into their people is staggering, and they continue to do so even in face of having to lay people off. With programs like Dream Big and other initiatives, they are definitely committed to their people. Not everyone was going to make it through the other side of COVID as I would suspect to be the case for a lot of companies, but I personally am confident that they did the best they could to save as many jobs as they could have.

Viewing 34 - 36 of 578 Reviews

Glassdoor has 602 DataRobot reviews submitted anonymously by DataRobot employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if DataRobot is right for you.