The Cake Is A Lie... - Software Engineer Nerdery Employee Review

1.0
Apr 10, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Free food, drinks. Pet-friendly. The team means well, but they've outgrown their capacity to manage what they've built.

Cons

It's High School 2.0...the worst parts of startup culture all in one! To start with, it's very political, with "who you know" determining your status and career path a whole lot more than "what you know". While The Nerdery preaches an open environment where developers can exercise their skills freely and learn new technologies, this isn't the case - in reality they expect developers to know everything (including their own internal processes related to code styling, commits, etc) without being educated on it. Then they proceed to hammer people in their 90-day reviews for not following processes they knew nothing about. You are at the mercy of your "mentor" (and I use that term VERY loosely) when joining the company - no matter how experienced of a developer you are, their sole feedback can make or break you. Different sets of rules and requirements also apply to you based on your social status (i.e. one person might be allowed to do something for which someone else would get written up - this happened to more than one person, all the time). In addition, they offer just one week of PTO for new employees. Projects often have vague requirements, QA does not often understand what they should be testing (developers create the use cases, and developers write the tests...) Friends and family members of executives receive positions and promotions for which they're unqualified, and they're granted much, much more leeway than the average employee. They also have an obsession with their late founder that borders on uncomfortable. Looking to join the Nerdery? When you play the game of thrones, you win or you die.

Explore other reviews about Nerdery

5.0
Jan 23, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

One of my favorite things about working at Nerdery was how my job was different every day, kept me in my toes and kept my skills fresh and current.

Cons

Some of the departments lacked clear direction.

1.0
Jan 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Actual client work is fun and we don't typically work with clients who are really aggressive with consultants. - Still have the opportunity to be remote

Cons

- Leadership is poor and consistently reactive. - There has been no real plan to improve the sales pipeline for nearly 3 years, but don't worry the man responsible for that failure was recently hired as a CEO elsewhere. - Layoffs happen, but there are examples where Nerdery leadership laid off employees who asked difficult questions or challenged leadership's ideas (e.g., retaliation). - We no longer have domain experts. Instead leadership is an account executive with an inflated title who might be pleasant, but doesn't actually have the expertise to improve the work. - Benefits were good when I started and now they are abysmal.

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