Pros
Before the current leadership DigitalOcean was an amazing place to work. Pre-2020, the company lived up to its values, had an amazing culture, provided real opportunities for dedicated employees, and was a place where leadership (both direct managers and senior leadership) cared about the people. There are great benefits for remote employees. Monthly snack/coffee deliveries, monthly wellness stipends, etc. They introduced extra paid days off in response to COVID. They offered an office stipend when the entire company became remote because of COVID. There are amazingly talented people at DigitalOcean. Great compensation, though annual raises have been significantly less beneath new leadership (3% max). Shark Week was an amazing benefit/event, but I doubt that will ever happen again once travel is safe because of the fixation on trimming costs.
Cons
- Under the latest leadership, veteran employees do not feel safe. - Recognition is only given to a handful of "teacher's pets." - Several layoffs in 2020 made room for senior leadership's colleagues from prior companies. Leadership posted job listings for these roles, which were quickly filled by old teammates from their last company. Some of these replacements have no idea what they are doing and are not qualified to be leaders, which is reflected in the work being done and the number of veterans looking for new work. - Internal surveys show that employees don't trust senior leadership, but leadership does nothing to course correct and regain trust. Their behaviors do the opposite. - The values are not true anymore. The only value that leadership lives by is to become "cash flow positive," even if that means letting go of the "love" culture they claim is at the core of "everything they do." The only thing at the core of all leadership does is profit. - The CEO has reprimanded those who ask difficult but fair questions during "AMAs." They always dodge the tough questions. - Note that almost all positive reviews from 2020 were written by people who've been with the company less than a year.
