May 6, 2019
Dynata Response
7yThank you for taking the time to provide feedback and I am glad that your experience with Dynata has been positive!
Dynata Software Developer reviews
4.0
82% would recommend to a friend
Mike Petrullo
100% approve of CEO
81% positive business outlook
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Reviews by job title
13 reviews
4.0
Oct 8, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
I worked as a software engineer at Research Now, so this review is from that perspective. 1. Research Now has a very interesting problem space and the opportunity to use a huge range of modern, cutting-edge technologies. Name something cool, and RN engineers are probably using it every day. 2. Teams work in an agile environment, with well designed team rooms. The teams are cross-functional, and include the product owner and QA. 3. The technical leadership is all about getting stuff done. You won't die a slow death in hundreds of meetings. 4. Engineers are given great leeway in how solutions get implemented. There are not ivory tower "architects" preaching down to you. We used Java, Groovy, Kotlin and NodeJS/ReactJS with deployment to Docker. 5. Fun-loving, casual work environment. Definitely a startup feel. Shorts and teeshirts, with a fridge full of beer on Fridays. 6. Good work-life balance, if you pay attention and manage it. There is an infinite amount of work, so don't boil the ocean. 7. They'll pay well for talent, but the rest of the benefits are merely average If you want to work on hard problems using great technology in a low friction environment, you can have a lot of fun here. This has a very startup-like feel. People who can't handle a fast-paced environment won't survive here, but those that do can have a rewarding experience.
Cons
The business side of the company is a trainwreck, and ultimately why I left. 1. The company was purchased by a flaky east coast PE group, and they micro manage finances at a monthly level. 2. The CEO is purely a bean counting sock puppet for the PE guys. There is no leadership or strategic thinking. Everything is about how to make the books look good to keep the puppet masters happy. 3. The company used to have a strong culture but that's gone into the toilet. Plenty of stealth layoffs on the business side. The engineering organization is largely shielded from this, but you definitely get the feel you're tolerated only because they desperately need you.
2.0
Sep 15, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook
Pros
1) For the most part I enjoyed the work as a software engineer at Research Now. 2) Co-workers were great people.
Cons
Previous CTO completely destroyed the engineering department. There has been a mass exodus this year (2017) of almost all of the top talent in the engineering department. The CTO left or was forced to leave but it was too late, everyone was already looking and was finding jobs. There is no vision for where the engineering department is going. My suspicion is that top management and the company in general is completely clueless, but I didn't have enough direct interaction with them to know for sure. Revenue is stagnant and profit is only staying afloat because of massive cost cutting. The people that are leaving engineering are either not being replaced or are being replaced with junior engineers. I'm guessing that top management is actually quite happy all the engineers are leaving because it's cost cutting without have to pay severance packages. Part of the cost cutting is also no raises, few promotions, and little opportunities for growth. Research Now used to attract top talent with great salaries. Those days are gone. It's probably still a good place for a junior engineer to put in a year to get experience and then leave.
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