Love it here - Software Developer Cengage Employee Review

5.0
Jul 16, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

This is a pretty great place to work. There is a really diverse team of software developers here, more so than any other software company I've seen. The other employees are really fabulous and talented and friendly, and they work well together as a team. The management is encouraging, the work is interesting and feels important, and the work-life balance is better here than at any other place I have worked. Working here, I feel respected, and productive, and I have opportunities to learn new things and broaden my skills and contribute creatively to the project. Cengage is a great place to work.

Cons

I was worried when I started that the lots of new people starting this year was a red flag, but the company's policies (like pair programming and TDD) mean that onboarding happens pretty quickly, and people become part of the team and start contributing quickly. Working at a big company as part of a big team of software developers, it's hard to see the fruits of my labor in action because I work on a relatively small piece of the pie. I've been thinking of signing up to audit a college class so I can use one of these fancy textbooks I've been building.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

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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