employer cover photo
employer logo
employer logo

Tom Sawyer Software

Is this your company?

Tom Sawyer Software reviews

4.2

77% would recommend to a friend

(68 total reviews)

Brendan Madden

78% approve of CEO

67% positive business outlook

Tom Sawyer Software has an employee rating of 4.2 out of 5 stars, based on 68 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an excellent working experience there. The Tom Sawyer Software employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

68 reviews
2.0
Jul 23, 2014

Great potential but......

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It was a great opportunity to learn about data visualization, interact with companies that were building innovative software and work with some amazing people. Work-life balance was great and the benefits were generous. Promotions were more in engineering than other departments.

Cons

Initiative is stifled by the CEO. There's a lack of strategy and planning.

avatar
Tom Sawyer Software Response
11y
Thank you for your review and for recognizing Tom Sawyer Software's potential. We highly value initiative, but do expect that ideas go through the proper review and approval channels, and then proper implementation. In this way, we can ensure that new initiatives meet the company's quality standards and are in-sync with the goals of the company. There really are many good ideas put forth by management and staff. As with many things, perseverance and hard work are needed to really follow through on ideas and see their implementation through. Furthermore, sometimes our staff has been surprised to find that an idea they had gets implemented a few years later. Strategy and planning have never been the difficulty. As with many organizations, it is execution that proves difficult when you have many moving parts in a very complex technical business. Further, managers and staff really do have different skills, interests, and abilities. Some managers and staff are really very effective in seeing ideas through to implementation, while others really are not able to. When ideas take a long time to implement or are not implemented, there is usually an operational skills issue.
1.0
Nov 26, 2013

Hostile Environment Due to CEO/Owner

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great co-workers, some very smart people to work with. Great product Flexible hours

Cons

CEO thinks that he is the best at everything. He does not want to tap into the expertise of people he hires to get the job done but rather makes them feel incompetent by constant micro managing. You have to battle with him each day to get your job done. He will often send emails to the whole company called them, s..t heads, letting them know that they have low IQ levels. Systems are antiquated and anyone who try's to bring a change are beaten up till they have no choice but to give up.

avatar
Tom Sawyer Software Response
11y
Thank you for taking the time to write a review. The CEO is the most experienced at Tom Sawyer Software, given that he founded the company and has worked there for more than twenty years. He is hands on and works at both a high level and at a detailed operation level as well. This attention, and the similar attention from other staff, has protected and built the company, and is necessary. It has also helped Tom Sawyer Software to become the top producer of graph visualization and analysis software in the world today - the first great company in the field - and to supply to organizations in many different industries. Our company has a culture of high standards, uncompromising continuous improvement, and work style that requires precision and attention to detail. We have developed cross-functional processes and systems through systematic development. We have also built our own information systems, structured file systems, wikis, and complex, data-driven websites, and are exploring the use of our own software for more operational functions. Tom Sawyer Software has many talented, appreciated, and respected managers and staff that thrive in this environment, and their ideas are valued and adopted when appropriate. Many of these staff have worked five, ten, or fifteen years with the company. They have the technical skill to do the work and use the systems and methods developed at the company. Successful staff members do not resist the requirement for continuous improvement and high-quality reviewed and approved work. Sometimes a manager or staff member joins Tom Sawyer Software from another company where there have been strong vertical silos and nearly completely independent departments that pick and choose what quality standards to have. Tom Sawyer Software does not function this way. At times, it is necessary for the CEO to insert himself or other managers into a department's work in order to improve what was perceived as uneven work quality, to improve consistency, or to address work practice problems.
2.0
Oct 25, 2016

Niche product, Niche company

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

With the massive changes in the Data Visualization market, TSS still plugs along. And they do so with a best of breed solution - but a very niche solution.

Cons

Marketing, marketing and more marketing. - how can you sell software with a website from 1948?? Kick the marketing into high gear w a soup to nuts change and watch the leads come in.

Viewing 4 - 6 of 68 Reviews

Glassdoor has 78 Tom Sawyer Software reviews submitted anonymously by Tom Sawyer Software employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Tom Sawyer Software is right for you.