Descartes Systems reviews

Descartes is really a collection of little kingdoms because much of the company growth is through acquisitions. When I was there, they were making 3-5 acquisitions a year so the ecosystem is just a bunch of independent entities that shares the same email domain. Also, because of this, there is very little synergy between products since everyone stays in their own lane. The company is also very anti-tech for a tech company. For a company of their size, they are extremely cheap and would not pay for the best tools on the market. This create many inefficiencies, and one of the reasons why I left. Lastly, I think their pay is definitely below industry average. Some of the old timers mentioned above are still making 90s/2000s salary which is absurd.

The company has money for acquisitions (150+- millions a year) but keeps salaries frozen (they don't have 10+ millions a year to give you notable bump - worldwide, this is what they circa need worldwide). When people ask about it, the answer is something like “we’re committed to reviewing compensation when conditions improve”, like in one of the answers here on glassdoor from management to one of the reviews — vague, zero commitment, no date, no plan, nothing concrete. Management doesn’t listen. I tried suggesting small improvements with literally zero cost, and they were immediately shut down. After a few attempts, I stopped bothering. Even the so-called “employee surveys” are just farce - they are not anonymous and never lead to real change. KPIs - chapter of its own: you set goals, you achieve them (management did ofc not help you with them at all), and nothing happens, no reward — except being told to write more goals for next year. The tools and equipment - the cheapest possible. Keyboard that broke after 6 months (it was literally cheaper to buy my own keyboard rather then go to office to get another 15euro crap). Underpowered laptops (everyone was getting them, it wasn't only my case) that run at 80%+ RAM all the time. Old chairs falling apart in the office (destroyed/missing armrests - I am not kidding, unfortunately I don't have photo, damaged backrests). But sure, we’ll get a new carpet — because that fixes everything. Asking for proper software licenses is another battle: it can take months, and you waste time writing essays to prove to management why the free version won’t cut it (btw that free version was missing like 40% of required features and the proper software costs only 10euro/month/developer to buy, let that sink in!). Communication from CEO: one week it is “we’re doing great,” the next it’s “economy is bad, tariffs, but that's OK - we will be stronger” -> he did not mention anything about salary freeze and layoffs — we heard it second-hand from local managers. But you know what he did not forget to mention multiple times (across multiple videos from him)? - if we can suggest some company to be acquired - you know what you will get back for it? Nothing. Company events? Like summer teambuilding - company wide event - it was planned for good two months in advance (at least what we did know about because we got invitation), and then suddenly cancelled week before it. Day to day, it feels one-sided. Management decides something today, and you have to follow it tomorrow. But when you need something, the process takes forever - if is even ever done. Overall, I felt there literally just as another row in excel table making money for company but not being rewarded for it — cheap hardware, frozen pay, ignored feedback, vague cheap phrases as answers, and no real support for growth.