Poorly resourced teams lead by ignorant senior management - Development and Production Cengage Employee Review

1.0
Feb 8, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Flexible work arrangements, generally really good people at the lower and middle levels

Cons

Teams working on product development are undervalued and under resourced. Senior management has very little idea of the work that goes into development and doesn't seem to care. There's no importance put on staff retention and when people leave, either management hire too quickly and hire the wrong people, or more likely, they don't replace the role and expect other people to take on the extra workload. Salaries are insultingly low and there's no salary transparency.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

Cons

Lots of changes and uncertainty at times

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.

3
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