Sep 25, 2017
Solid place to get started
Anonymous employee
SmartDraw.com reviews
3.5
46% would recommend to a friend
Paul Stannard
69% approve of CEO
35% positive business outlook
3.0
Sep 30, 2013
Great place to gain experience, but not to develop a career
Anonymous employee
Current employee, more than 1 year
San Diego, CA
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
-Great customer service and responsiveness towards customers, especially in the software industry. -General open communication within the company, CEO is forthcoming and honest with general direction and forecasting of the company. -Relaxed work environment, good work-life balance. -Team building events/lunches/dinners.
Cons
-Rigid senior management, not open to new ideas outside of their own train of thought. -Too much time, effort, and money allocated to SEO and not enough on actual software development to fix age-old bugs and issues that consistently get brought up by customers -Lack of communication and cooperation between departments. -Knee-jerk responses to market fluctuations seem to cause more harm than good. -Website is an absolute clutter and can be confusing and discouraging for prospective customers. Many pages are outdated in both design and content. -Constant changes to software versioning/branding and pricing is extremely confusing both internally and to customers.
5.0
Jun 26, 2013
Great work environment, strong product
Anonymous employee
Current employee, more than 1 year
San Diego, CA
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
To me the most important positive aspect of working here is the value system. The environment created by the CEO (who is also the owner and founder) and COO is one of absolute integrity and respect in the treatment of employees, customers and vendors alike. I have worked in few environments where people are consistently treated in such a respectful manner and where integrity and doing the "right thing" are valued ahead of immediate gain. Other positives of working here include the fact that it's a great product. Additionally, management is continually looking "down the road" and making changes as needed to stay current. Given that the product was first marketed in 1994 and is still going strong clearly speaks to the founder's vision and ability to keep the product relevant in a world of changing needs and technologies. SmartDraw offers extremely competitive salaries and a benefit package that compares favorably to those of much larger companies. The work place is casual and flexible and affords a work/life balance that is not often found in companies today. There are monthly company lunch meetings where the CEO outlines key metrics of the business, and talks about plans and strategies for the future-people are given an opportunity to ask questions and really understand the issues that are currently important to the business. The entire employee populations consists of people who are bright, hard-working and who work well together-all in all it is an environment that is hard to beat.
Cons
It's a small company. For some people this is a pro, for others it's a con. Because it's small there may not be fully developed career paths in all areas. The flip side of that is, you get an opportunity to do a much broader range of things and be exposed to a wider breadth of the business than you would be able to be in a larger company.
