Does Acumen pay their employees well?

According to anonymously submitted Glassdoor reviews, Acumen employees rate their compensation and benefits as 2.8 out of 5. Find out more about salaries and benefits at Acumen. This rating has improved by 15% over the last 12 months.

How satisfied are employees working at Acumen?

27% of Acumen employees would recommend working there to a friend based on Glassdoor reviews . Employees also rated Acumen 3.1 out of 5 for work life balance, 2.6 for culture and values and 2.7 for career opportunities.

What are the top reviewed jobs at Acumen?

Data and Policy Analyst (69) , Data and Policy Analyst I (20) , Data and Policy Analyst II (16) , Analyst (11) , Statistical Programmer (11) , Data and Policy Analyst III (9) , Data and Policy Analyst IV (8) , Data Analyst (5) , Data and Policy Analyst - Statistical Programmer (5) , Policy Lead (5) , Research Analyst (5) , Lead Research Analyst (4) , Operations Coordinator (4) , Policy Analyst (4) , Senior Research Analyst (4)

What are the pros of working at Acumen according to real employee reviews?

"Nice people and generous on H1B applications" ((in 33 reviews)); "Nice coworkers across different departments" ((in 27 reviews)); "All administrative teams are friendly and helpful." ((in 19 reviews)); "Flexible work location and hours" ((in 9 reviews)); "Good working environment and great geographic location" ((in 6 reviews))

What are the cons of working at Acumen according to real employee reviews?

"Your life quality hinges upon the quality of your supervisor; not everyone gets assigned good managers;" ((in 42 reviews)); "Pay is low for the work and very low for the location" ((in 32 reviews)); "Hard for juniors to get a big picture of the projects they are doing; benefits are poor" ((in 18 reviews)); "life balance and poor upper management." ((in 17 reviews)); "Work/life balance can be difficult to maintain" ((in 15 reviews))

What are employees saying about Acumen layoffs in 2026?

Explore Glassdoor’s employee reviews to understand what current and former employees are saying about Acumen layoffs and their outlook for job security at Acumen in 2026.

What are the top reviewed Acumen locations?

Burlingame , Washington , Los Angeles , San Francisco , Millbrae , San Jose , Orem , Draper , Saint Louis , New York , Mesa , Oklahoma City , Atlanta , Red Oak , San Antonio , La Jolla , San Mateo , Marksville , Pittsburgh , Milledgeville , Tysons Corner

Acumen reviews

3.0

27% would recommend to a friend

(396 total reviews)

Thomas MaCurdy

5% approve of CEO

20% positive business outlook

Ratings by category

3.5

Diversity & inclusion

3.1

Work/Life balance

2.8

Compensation and benefits

2.7

Career opportunities

2.6

Culture & values

2.0

Senior management

Acumen has an employee rating of 3.0 out of 5 stars, based on 396 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Acumen employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Government & Public Administration industry (3.6 stars).

Ratings by demographic groups

Race / Ethnicity

Gender

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Parent or family caregiver

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Reviews by job title

396 reviews

5.0

Dec 21, 2014

cool, smart coworkers + interesting work + great growth opportunities

Anonymous employee

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

you can start at the bottom and be leading a project in a few years coworkers are smart and (for the most part) cooperative and sweet people work-life balance is great if you're the type who likes to work hard on interesting problems but still go home at 6

Cons

compensation varies greatly among different job descriptions and even sometimes among the same job description - you may get a very competitive salary or be offered a much lower salary than expected (although this has been remedied a bit recently) depending on the team you are placed on, your manager may have more or less experience managing and developing people work increases exponentially on some projects - most are just right, some are 100 hours/week

Acumen Response

11y

Thanks for taking the time to leave a review.

3.0

Dec 10, 2014

data & policy analyst (intern)

Anonymous employee

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

sas training is great. company culture is very collegial. important public sector work - meaning projects actually impact the american public. i liked working here overall

Cons

not a very professional environment, felt more like research as opposed to consulting. location can be a bit difficult to get to/get out off after last shuttle service

Acumen Response

11y

Thanks for leaving a review.

4.0

Nov 8, 2014

Smart people, meaningful work, somewhat chaotic

Data and policy analyst

Recommend

CEO approval

Business Outlook

Pros

Acumen is a little bit of a mix between an academic environment and a corporate environment, that has to deal with a lot of government bureaucracy due to the nature of the work. Most of the employees are in their 20's, which includes a lot of managers. They come from good schools, a lot of undergrad math majors and masters in statistics, along with a handful of PhD's (economics, typically), although there's a wide variety of degrees. As such, you're going to be around a lot of smart, hard-working, young people. The company is (internally) fairly dynamic and fast-moving, with the restrictions to workflow generally coming from the government side of things. The nature of the work, I think, is more rewarding than both the typical SF Bay Area tech company and the typical university. You're going to be working on current federal health care data, helping to shape national policy. As opposed to working at a startup making yet another fitness app, or running predictions on what kinds of shoes a user is most likely to buy. Or working at a university, on 10 year old survey data of 3,000 people. It's something in the middle. The work hours are flexible, the culture is informal, and the work is challenging. The Burlingame office is right on the bay, great views, good for outdoor walks along the water.

Cons

The drawback of staffing a company with a lot of people who are fresh out of school is that there isn't a lot of outside work experience brought to the company. Most of the new employees have never known anything outside of the university, or a summer internship type experience. The result is that, while there is a lot of technical training, there isn't a lot of experience in working in a team environment towards a shared long-term goal (not typically learned in a university). Internal communication suffers as a consequence, which can result in unevenly distributed workloads, last-minute requests, duplication of work, version control problems, etc. The company is moving in the direction of being more mature and "integrated", but there is some distance to go. Pay and benefits are adequate for the location and typical experience level. But you don't go into public policy to get rich. Work-life balance is a function of the distribution of workload. If you're in the weeds having to fix old mistakes, it will be bad. But if things are going well, it's fine.

Acumen Response

11y

Thank you for the review and advice.

Viewing 355 - 357 of 396 Reviews

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cool, smart coworkers + interesting work + great growth opportunities

data & policy analyst (intern)

Smart people, meaningful work, somewhat chaotic

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