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      Draper

      Engaged Employer

      Draper reviews

      4.1

      89% would recommend to a friend

      (62 total reviews)
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      Jerry Wohletz

      95% approve of CEO

      78% positive business outlook

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      62 reviews

      Reviews about "Compensation"

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      4.0
      Oct 20, 2015

      Wait and See

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      As a Draper Fellow, I'm getting my full tuition for 5+ years of a PhD program as well as my salary paid by Draper. They have bought me $50k+ worth of state of the art equipment and allow me lots of flexibility as a grad student.

      Cons

      The bureaucracy can slow things down tremendously. Everything takes time when some National Security projects are (unsurprisingly) given preference over that of a grad student.

      3.0
      Jan 17, 2015

      Great place to have a job, not a good place to grow a career

      Senior member technical staff
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      This is a great place to have a job - the work environment is generally good. They have good benefits, average vacation, and are very flexible if you need to re-arrange your schedule around family needs. The work is interesting and the people are smart.

      Cons

      Draper is a bad place to try to grow a career. As a practice, they only promote people who have led successful projects (i.e., projects that led to follow-on revenue). There is no path to promotion for people who choose to focus on technical work or for people who agree to lead riskier projects less certain of successful follow-on funding. When they want upper level technical staff they hire from outside and do not look to advance their own people. Communication has generally been horrible between upper management and the rest of the company. However, we just got a new CEO (in Oct 2014) and hopefully that is going to change. There is very little support for software engineering - IT caters only to administrative and management functions and it is very difficult to use any current software tools, packages, etc. that are available to enable better software development.

      3.0
      Sep 16, 2014

      Good projects, but too restricted

      Intern
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business Outlook

      Pros

      Interesting projects, good pay, projects have plenty of money, flexible work environment, great affordable cafeteria. You will never get fired unless you REALLY mess up somehow. The name of the company usually has a big effect on anyone in the industry. It's well respected.

      Cons

      Too many big egos to deal with, very secretive about everything (even when it's not necessary). The secrecy part can get in the way of completing your work, which can be frustrating. Bad communication was also somewhat common when I was there. This may have been because of the age of people I was working with, but I've worked at other places where communication between team members and other departments was much better and created better work.

      Viewing 58 - 60 of 62 Reviews
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