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PowerSchool Group

Engaged Employer

PowerSchool Group reviews

3.3

46% would recommend to a friend

(1,403 total reviews)
avatar

Antonio Pietri

20% approve of CEO

39% positive business outlook

Ratings by category

3.6

Diversity & inclusion

3.4

Work/Life balance

3.3

Culture & values

3.2

Compensation and benefits

3.1

Career opportunities

2.8

Senior management

PowerSchool Group has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 1,403 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The PowerSchool Group employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Ratings by demographic groups

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
1.0
Nov 20, 2018

Debunking the "Unlimited" time off myth

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The working environment is flexible and modern at Power School.

Cons

All of the managerial decisions at Power School come down from the company's ownership, Vista Private Equity and their consulting arm, Vista Consulting Group. Before starting at Power School I would highly suggest any prospective new employee read up on what working at a Vista company is like and see if it's right for you. Just google "Richer than Oprah" and you'll find a very good article on Forbes about Robert Smith and Vista and how things are run. Anyway, to keep this concise I will focus on one Con, which is truly a con. "Unlimited" or "Discretionary" time off. US employees at Power School don't earn PTO like most full time employees in the United States (Canadian employees still earn PTO because DTO is illegal in Canada). Instead taking time off is a very closely monitored metric of your employee performance and every time off request is subject to managerial approval. Although the company has no explicit cap on time off shared with employees, there is tracking of the time you take off and warnings from managers against taking time off that is more than your colleagues (even if you are meeting and exceeding very challenging stretch goals set for you). This obviously benefits the company in the short term by discouraging people from taking time off, and limits liability of the accumulated PTO benefits owed to employees. This may be beneficial to the company in the short term, but it certainly doesn't help with low employee morale. It's a well known fact that rested workers who are encouraged to take time off instead of discouraged work harder and do better at their job. If the ownership of Power School valued long term success instead of selling the company at a profit in the short term, perhaps they would consider that. But, alas they aren't concerned with long term viability, just following the Vista way and eventually selling or going to IPO. The time off scheme is a good example of how Vista runs things. Short term considerations rule the day in Power School. The short term decision making drove away almost all the smart people I worked with over the course of two years.

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PowerSchool Group Response
7y
Thank you for your comments. PowerSchool does review the feedback noted by employees and former employees such as yourself as employee engagement is key to our success. PowerSchool, along with several tech companies such as LinkedIn, Netflix and Hubspot, have adopted a discretionary time off (DTO) policy. With such a policy, employees are responsible for their own time off and have the flexibility to take time to better meet their personal needs. Employees partner with their management team to ensure critical business needs are meet, personal performance is maintained while also meeting the employee work-life balance needs. The decision to move to a DTO policy was a PowerSchool decision, as we believe it demonstrates the trust we have in our employee base and was the best long term time off alternative. This is one example of several changes recently made in our overall compensation and benefit plans to the longer term benefit of our employees.
1.0
Jan 22, 2024

Horrific Leadership

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I happened to have a good immediate team, by luck.

Cons

Cold blooded, sudden, impersonal, and random feeling layoffs while stock price is increasing, continued external hiring, and announcing another acquisition. If I could give lower than one star, I would. Executives will literally yell at employees over nothing in the middle of large calls, and they do it frequently. Significant top talent is actively planning to leave, pending other job offers, as everyone is expressing on private group texts. The townhall was a joke. You've shown everyone who you are and where your values lie - it is not with your people. People don't feel safe and they don't feel committed to the mission when they know how expendable leadership sees them. Supposedly it doesn't even matter if its India or the US, both places are unfriendly to employees.

3.0
Jul 13, 2021

Chronically Underpaid, Extremely Manager Dependent, But Great Place to Learn

Sales
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

PowerSchool is owned by VC and has been for some time now. Anyone currently at PowerSchool or looking to come onboard should accept that for what it is. You're going to be offered at or below market compensation packages and typically micromanaged from the top down. As long as you look at PowerSchool for what it is, a decent company that will help an early-stage employee build their resume and learn a ton until they're skilled and driven enough to move onto a new company. In my time at PowerSchool I was managed by multiple different people and can honestly say that PowerSchool does have some great managers but it also has ones who will micromanage their direct reports into the ground. Everyone there has stretch goals and is under a tremendous amount of pressure and by product of this can and is often micromanagement. Each department is extremely siloed and for a company that is the biggest in K12 and employs over 2500 people the lack of resources at times is eye opening. Overall, I really enjoyed my time at PowerSchool and loved the people I worked with but as with many ex-PowerSchool employees I built my resume, ended up leaving and went from being paid well below market rate to well above market rate. At PowerSchool you'll most likely learn a tremendous amount in a very short amount of time (since it is VC owned and at times can feel like a very restrictive startup), grow into your responsibilities, and have more and more put on your plate until you feel overworked and then end up leaving for better pay. This company has a very healthy amount of turnover.

Cons

PowerSchool is extremely focused on the bottom line often times at the detriment of their employees and at times their customers. The unified vision is great but is still a collection of disparate products which the Product team is desperately trying to integrate. I did enjoy my time at PowerSchool but as an employee, you definitely feel like a number rather than a valued member of the team unless you're a Director level or higher. You'll see many reviews on here complaining about management tactics (mine included to a point) but if you're expecting anything different from a Vista owned company you're sadly mistaken.

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