Dragos reviews

When I joined Dragos, it felt like an exciting place to be, with the company positioned as a leader in industrial cybersecurity. However, poor leadership decisions from the CEO and executive team have turned what could have been a promising experience into a frustrating environment. The company's rapid shift to prioritize platform sales, despite lackluster product maturity, left Dragos overextended and set up for failure. Venture capital poured in to chase an IPO dream that was ultimately based on hype rather than real market value. This $1.7 billion valuation, while exciting on the surface, lacked any solid foundation in the company’s actual sales performance. Leadership choices in 2022 and 2023 only worsened things. Despite repeatedly missing sales targets, the company continued to hire at an unsustainable pace, bloating to over 500 employees. During this time, the CEO openly promised no layoffs to calm concerns but then reversed course as financial realities set in. The result? Two major rounds of layoffs, a demoralized workforce, and a profound loss of trust. The initial layoffs blindsided many employees, and the CEO's subsequent "we’ll avoid layoffs at all costs" promise rang hollow. Ultimately, another layoff wave cut even deeper, affecting critical teams in customer success and engineering, with remaining employees left to wonder if more cuts were coming. On the product side, Dragos is plagued by operational and technical hurdles. The platform’s detection capabilities often feel inadequate, burdened with noisy, uninformative alerts, and lacking in integration options. Delays in releasing a cloud-based version forced the company to rely on costly, cumbersome hardware setups that come with long buying cycles and require extensive partner involvement—all of which eats away at potential profits. These challenges are clear to end-users, many of whom find the product’s value questionable. The CEO’s inexperience shows through constant shifts in strategy and poor handling of employee morale. Grand statements about “core values” and “keys to winning” fell flat, feeling more like a way to justify erratic moves rather than stabilize the company’s future. Meanwhile, the CEO’s hands-on interference with the Product team has only added to operational disarray. Recently, Dragos has been discreetly attempting to secure additional funding from current investors to stabilize its finances, all while attempting to maintain its reputation as a high-growth company. The bottom line: Dragos still holds appeal if you’re looking to break into ICS cybersecurity or need a short stint on your resume, but be prepared for a volatile environment. Morale is low, long-time employees are leaving, and the company’s leadership has demonstrated a shaky grasp on how to steer through challenging times.

The #1 rule of Dragos is "Don't be an ahole," and that's very true, and you will walk on eggshells and go way out of the way to make sure you always have a positive spin on communication....unless you are in leadership at Dragos, then your most likely an ahole. Starting with the top Their CEO preaches transparency and is overly transparent in all the wrong ways. He has often bad-mouthed former employees, former and existing customers, and prospects letting the whole company know he is much more intelligent than any of them. There have been many calls and meetings where he is impaired by alcohol, even drinking during calls, and giving us his story of childhood and marital drama and how his personal life affects business decisions. The Dragos CRO, while a successful CRO in other fields, has successfully dismantled a successful sales team, which was giving steady growth over 3-4 years, in hopes of exponential 100%+ growth in 12 months, during a recession, only to see it come crashing down. The mix of this toxic CEO and CRO and their push for unprecedented growth led to a round of layoffs after telling the entire company "there would be no layoffs," and Dragos is financially sound. The VPs, while generally more professional in their demure, typically still have a considerable ego and lack communication skills outside of their direct silo. All take me first approach, not caring about how it may affect the more excellent organization. My direct boss was one of them. Their personal life drama always took precedence over getting the job done. I completely understand we all need an hour here or there to take care of personal business, but when it's a regular occurrence and causes timelines to be missed, and the blame is 100% put on the person doing the work, it's a big problem. Promotions and pay raises don't exist. When you get a promotion, it is generally for the same pay and more equity. That's great if they sell for 10 Billion dollars, but when you are overleveraged to VCs and underdelivering on performance, that does not mean much.