DraftKings reviews

3.8

71% would recommend to a friend

(894 total reviews)
avatar

Jason Robins

78% approve of CEO

62% positive business outlook

DraftKings has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 894 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The DraftKings 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

894 reviews
5.0
Sep 24, 2018

Exciting time to be at DK

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great company culture, lots of young people looking to make a difference within the industry, team oriented environment - employees are encouraged to do great work to support your team and projects, growing company with lots of opportunities for upward mobility, hiring like crazy perks: mani-pedis, massages, game tickets, free food & snacks,

Cons

People assume you need to love sports to work here - you don't, currently on a bunch of different floors so it feels like we are all very split up but we are moving to an awesome new space (biggest one floor office in Boston) so hopefully that will get better, over 80 percent men but I haven't noticed any real negatives around it...the company is starting a diversity initiative to improve these numbers

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DraftKings Response
7y
Thank you for your positive feedback. We are happy to read how much you are enjoying your team, career opportunities, and the office perks. Diversity and Inclusion continue to be a focus for us. We have a long way to go, but we're investing in key initiatives to establish our D&I foundation. Thank you again for your great review and let us know how we can continue to foster your career here at DraftKings. Jason
3.0
Jan 1, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* DraftKings gives lots of opportunities for engineers to take on large challenges, in both technical planning and implementation. This is ideal for early-career growth. The promotion process from software engineer to senior software engineer is straightforward and happens relatively quickly for talented engineers. * The people you work with day-to-day are talented and kind, and collaboration between teams is pretty good as well. * Unlimited PTO is easy to take with no formal approval process. * DraftKings makes an effort to move engineers to different teams when their products become de-prioritized, instead of doing layoffs (although there have been some layoffs, they were certainly less than the ones at other tech companies in recent years).

Cons

* You're given opportunity to gain valuable skills, but your compensation will not rise accordingly. Base pay does not really change beyond promotions, with yearly raises being <2% which will not keep up with inflation. You are expected to be on call for week-long 24/7 shifts fairly regularly and respond within 10 minutes to any pages, which I found to be a pretty big detriment to my personal life (all without additional compensation). Expect to do live monitoring on weekends and evenings for big sports events, also unpaid. Once you have experience, it's pretty easy to find a better paying job with fewer oncall expectations outside of DraftKings. * Product sets deadlines before technical planning is done, meaning engineers are frequently having to step up and be 'heroes' to get features out in time. This leads to a lot of tech debt and production bugs, which further worsens on call for engineers. * DraftKings is increasingly shifting to metrics to measure engineer success, meaning the number of 'points' of tickets you do will be compared against your peers. Managers do not take into account whether you were on vacation or your contributions towards helping your teammates get their tickets across the board. * Can be a bit of a boy's club. My immediate team was always welcoming but women engineers who have to collaborate with other teams are often patronized or dismissed. Expect to repeat yourself a few times if you're a woman who has to talk to one of the all-male engineering teams. * Senior management seems lacking -- mostly they seem to ignore employee feedback and always show up right before product launches to demand changes that should have been suggested much earlier in the planning process (demanding that features previously agreed to be non-mvp get added last minute pre-launch, changing the product name/color scheme).

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DraftKings Response
2y
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and experiences at DraftKings. We're pleased to hear that you find DraftKings to be a place that provides ample opportunities for engineers to take on challenging projects and foster career growth. Additionally, it's great to know that you value the collaborative environment with your teammates. On the other hand, we understand and acknowledge the concerns you've raised regarding compensation, on-call expectations, and the challenges related to product deadlines. Your feedback about the potential impact on work-life balance is particularly important. We are continuously evaluating our compensation structure and policies to ensure they align with the well-being of our team members. The points you've raised about the challenges women engineers face are concerning. We are looking closely into this and raising these concerns with the leadership team. We do not tolerate the behaviors you pointed out and remain committed to fostering an inclusive and supportive workplace for everyone at DraftKings. We continue to evaluate feedback to improve communication channels and ensure employee feedback is heard and implemented where possible. Your feedback is important to us, and we appreciate your honesty regarding the positive aspects and the areas where we can improve.
2.0
Jun 2, 2022

DraftKings was amazing 2014-2019.......

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The founders are great, the Boston office was amazing and loaded with free snacks, beer, etc. The early days were SO much fun, we were scrappy and got stuff done to better the company. It was a tight knit team.

Cons

Company grew at a rapid clip and lost it's start up identity, hired some senior leaders that came from very large corporations, and tried to replicate that large corporation culture into this super cool tech start up. It created a lot of friction, turf wars, massive turnover, and inefficiencies. Seemed like 20% of the company did all the work.

Viewing 13 - 15 of 894 Reviews

Glassdoor has 997 DraftKings reviews submitted anonymously by DraftKings employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if DraftKings is right for you.