MicroStrategy reviews

2.9

36% would recommend to a friend

(271 total reviews)
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Phong Le

29% approve of CEO

32% positive business outlook

Reviews by job title

271 reviews

Reviews about "Management"

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2.0
May 6, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Stable, consistent salary. Agreeable people to work with. The job is mostly easy. Moving internally between departments or specialties is not too difficult, provided you have the expertise/training. The only thing I can see truly positive about them is that they did pay reliably, and offer a fair benefits package.

Cons

Guaranteed overtime during the end of any development cycle for major OR minor releases. Mostly because of poor planning by management, and over-promising by marketing. Heavy political atmosphere with emphasis on "towing the company line" rather than getting the job done. Even internally!! Lots of off-shore hiring and foreign hiring, few American workers employed - most are Indian, Chinese, or Mexican. I have nothing against cultural diversity, but these are literally people from another country that have been relocated for their job with a work visa. In other words, they do not employ very many *Americans* (except maybe in HR). I was one of 3 Americans on my entire floor of over 300 people. Furthermore, they outsource testing and development jobs heavily to India, China, and Russia because it saves money. They close other offices (except HQ) in the U.S. or anywhere around the world if they fail to meet the cost-benefit ratio. This is a highly profit-driven public-traded company that cares way more about their bottom line than satisfying their customers or employees. Developers may easily work 50-60 hours a week as a normal work week. During crunch time, working 80 hours per week is not unheard of, and it ends when the managers say it ends. The pay does not increase with overtime as workers are salaried, they are simply given some extra comp days - but that is not worth the frustration and stress involved in this entire process. Most developers look like they have been there forever and the light has gone out of their eyes. Everyone who works there only cares about a paycheck; they accept the status quo, and most don't venture beyond their cubicles or their manager's office. The company culture is anti-new-ideas (although they say to your face that they have an open-door policy, you are just open to talk, not to be listened to unless you have worked there for 10 years). Heavily political. Oh, and what the CEO says is GOD as far as anyone is concerned. They will always tell you "Well, he writes out paychecks, so...."

2.0
Mar 26, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Good team members and manager (if lucky) - work-life balance - easy access to lunch options due to the mall

Cons

- Compensation: Below market in terms of base salary. Lags market by 2-3 years. No stock options either. Absolutely no incentive in terms of paycheck to keep you motivated to work harder. Compensation varies across teams even for similar position. - Benefits: An on-site gym and some useless spring music jams is all that is offered. Rarely any team events. - HR staff: It's the epitome of passiveness. Apparently, they feel that hiring is the only task they should do. So once you are in you wont see any worthy to mention initiatives taken up by them. - Promotions: Tenure based. Won't matter whether you work hard or just pretend you are working. Annual raises are not dependent on your performance. You just get what someone higher up decided for you. That seals your fate! - Too many directors and managers. Some don't even have direct reports. God knows what they manage. Probably they are just hanging around and waiting for retirement. These managers don't even have proper management training. - Haphazard restructuring. Either all good leaders are leaving every few months or they are forced to leave. Talented engineers rarely stay around for long! - The ones who have good contacts higher up the chain will get promoted out of cycle and sometimes multiple times a year. While the rest wait for annual cycle that brings only disappointment and more frustration. - management makes useless spending like putting ipads on doors, giving out multiple mobile devices to senior leaders (yes each one carries an ipad, mini-ipad, android, iphone)

3.0
Mar 5, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The best thing here is the work-life balance. Hours are very flexible, and most managers just care about you getting the job done -how you use your time to do it is not very relevant. If you're lucky enough, you'll land in a good team with a good manager, and hard-working nice guys.

Cons

There are several things to consider (from a software engineering role): - Compensation: it is simply below industry standard. Base salary is low, and bonuses are generally low as well - then add you almost never get 100% out of your bonus potential. In average, software engineering positions somewhere else will get you at least 10-15% more. - Benefits: other than a gym on-site and 10% cellphone plan discount, perks are not very good. If you manage to stay in the company for 6 years, you get 5 weeks paid vacation, but that's not the norm for MicroStrategy employees. - Lack of motivation: it's hard to find a guy that can sell you the job or the MicroStrategy vision. Top management specially is simply not a role model or someone to admire. Too much disorder, trying to do so many things at the same time without a clear, well-thought road-map. If you're unlucky enough to land in a "maintenance-mode" team, you will be pretty much fixing bugs and implementing small features on old products, while fighting non-sense requests from recent-grads working as PMs or non-technical analysts. - No standards. No clear processes: Different teams work as they please. Some of them have no build process in place. Some use a version control system, some others. Some have a lacking QA function. No clear communication channels. No ownership. - No employee recognition: it's hard to feel you're a valued person in the company. Other than a "employee of the quarter" recognition that is largely dependent on having a manager that wants you to be recognized (the minority of managers), you won't get anything. Not that recognition is the whole, but it certainly helps. - No clear career path: most of people here get promoted based on tenure rather than on performance. That leads to "senior" and "management" roles that shouldn't be. If people doesn't have the skills, then just don't promote them. You're going to damage the company when you put someone in charge of growing a team that does not know how to be a manager, or a leader. Believe me, I'd rather get a better salary increase than being a manager of my own time (i.e. managers with no direct reports). This of course is no secret. Talent leaves the company as soon as their immigration case is resolved (if applicable) or as a better offer somewhere else comes.

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