If you're not "in the club", you won't last long! - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

2.0
Dec 3, 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Some of the smartest people I have ever worked with! Mostly a nice working environment. Flexible work schedule, depending on your manager. Decent benefits.

Cons

Horrible management! If they don't like you, watch out! You'll be heading for the unemployment office! Promotions are given to friends, not to most qualified individuals. Therefore, you end up with Admin Assistants getting promoted to management over other, more highly qualified, candidates. Pay is below average. HR is NOT there to help the employee! Only covers the backsides of the poor managers. Product development is too slow, even after adopting "Agile".

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1.0
Jul 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The individuals below the management level are good people, with some good people at management but C-Suite is horrible.

Cons

C-Suite hides their plans under corporate speak. Cengage was a family owned private company and they sold and ever since then has had, debt, schemes to shuffle and restructure debt while implementing RIFs after RIFs after RIFs...never ending and amazingly has been in increased this last year. From their actions it's outsource as much as you can of company operations and squeeze value from Intellectual Property. Look how many times they've renamed themselves. They had a CTO join for about a month or two until she realized it was a role with no team, no authority and left. The CEO is amazing at spin, you hear "great, great, great" corporate speak as the reality on the ground is "this failed, that failed..what!? they're gone!...what they moved that department offshore!...what!? that department is now a vendor relationship...oh we're not DEI focused because the wind changed". The trend is contraction not expansion, no ground breaking innovation. My jaded view from college on expensive books has only grew since I see how the sausage is made.

5
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