Pros
I had the opportunity to work with some truly great people, at the peer level.
Cons
So many cons, unfortunately. In brief, there comes a time with any start-up where it's in the best interest of the company for the founder(s) to step down in order to bring in seasoned leaders to help usher in the next growth phase of the business. Sadly, our founder and his long-standing leadership team, which is heavily comprised of family/collegiate connections/etc, never relinquished control in order to take Dataminr to the next level. As a result, Dataminr has plateaued significantly and is in the process of coordinating its second round of company layoffs in one year. Because of poor top-down leadership, Dataminr has lacked proper strategic innovation and execution for years and it's finally catching up to them. Top talent that previously joined has been slowly making their exits throughout the year and this trend will continue into 2024, alongside the upcoming layoffs. There is an internal struggle culture, which almost feels like a constant frenzy to make things work by repeatedly changing up the sales process one way or another, but it's all been a series of frazzled and fruitless attempts as we ultimately lack the most important piece of puzzle to making our business work, which is product relevancy and innovation. At best, Dataminr will be stagnant and will most likely sell at some point to stay alive. I don't see how growth is possible at this point with the founding leaders in place. Last bit I'll share for anyone on the job hunt. Dataminr also just changed insurance and benefits packages on everyone. Anyone with a family went from paying $0 a month for healthcare to paying $200-230, depending, PER PAYCHECK. It’s an instant $5-6k salary reduction for many employees. They also decreased the 401k contribution amount slightly and a few other fringe benefits as well. For context, I am not disgruntled and left the company on my own terms after several years of employment having formed fantastic relationships. It is disheartening to write this review but I feel compelled to warn others who might be considering joining Dataminr.
