Products are great, treatment of lower level employees is not - Product Assistant Cengage Employee Review

2.0
Apr 10, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I'd say the best part of working here is generally the people I work with. It's great seeing the company turn a corner, and try to innovate in the ed tech market as well.

Cons

I am extremely underpaid, over-worked and I constantly feel like I'm being taken advantage of. After working here for a few years with increasing responsibility I feel like I haven't seen any benefit on my end. There is no way for me to advance by merit in my current position and the openings for promotions are far and few between and very competitive to get. If I was doing what I was doing at any other company I would be paid nearly twice as much. I am almost always doing my job and someone else's job due to the high turnover for the last few years.

avatar
Cengage Response
12y
Thanks for your feedback. I agree we have great people, and I’m disappointed to hear that you feel there isn’t opportunity here for advancement. We’ve had a high and growing number of internal promotions in the US since Jan. 1. You’re right – it’s competitive, but that’s a good sign for us and speaks to the quality of our teams. Playing politics is not a culture we embrace here. I’d encourage you to speak with your manager and/or HR regarding your perspective – we might be able to get to the bottom of this if you share specifics. Thanks.

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5.0
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Pros

Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

Cons

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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.

6
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