Change may not be a good thing - Anonymous employee Cengage Employee Review

2.0
Feb 13, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

This isn't a bad place to work - You'll work with good people and technology. Work-life balance is good - You aren't pushed too hard. But don't expect a long or rewarding career (see below).

Cons

Market: The market for textbooks has been declining for a while, but really took a dive in 2017. Over 50% of the company's revenue is still tied to products that include print [Yes, they'll tell you more than 50% is digital - it depends on how you classify all the products that include both. And revenue (as opposed to units) is larger for print]. The market for courseware is growing in terms of units sold (replacing hardcopy textboks), but is extremely price sensitive and is not about to replace the decline in printed textbooks. With low cost and often better open texts and courses gaining traction (see Rice's OpenSax - $10/course), another shoe is yet to drop. All of the erstwhile textbook publishers are going to have to cut costs a lot more than they already have to make ends meet (and produce profits for their owners). Change: Leadership likes to call the company Changegage. Each year/semester brings change to the organization. Products and initiatives that were important get deferred. Teams get laid off when their products/releases get to market. Politics: There is significant politics within management ranks. Engineering will get thrown under the bus if they miss a release date. Product teams get the run around. You won't see cross-functional teams that really work together, rather each org checks on the other. Engineering management is super-conservative and resists change. Scrum teams can't make change happen without long approvals. Career: One of the things you notice when you work on the tech teams is that virtually no one has been here longer than 2 years (look on LinkedIn). After a couple years without bonuses and meaningful raises people see through the same-old management-speak and leave (if they aren't laid off yet). Don;t count on your 401K matching - it won't have time to vest :-(.

Explore other reviews about Cengage

5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Total rewards, time off, great people and culture

Cons

Lots of changes and uncertainty at times

1.0
Jul 13, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The individuals below the management level are good people, with some good people at management but C-Suite is horrible.

Cons

C-Suite hides their plans under corporate speak. Cengage was a family owned private company and they sold and ever since then has had, debt, schemes to shuffle and restructure debt while implementing RIFs after RIFs after RIFs...never ending and amazingly has been in increased this last year. From their actions it's outsource as much as you can of company operations and squeeze value from Intellectual Property. Look how many times they've renamed themselves. They had a CTO join for about a month or two until she realized it was a role with no team, no authority and left. The CEO is amazing at spin, you hear "great, great, great" corporate speak as the reality on the ground is "this failed, that failed..what!? they're gone!...what they moved that department offshore!...what!? that department is now a vendor relationship...oh we're not DEI focused because the wind changed". The trend is contraction not expansion, no ground breaking innovation. My jaded view from college on expensive books has only grew since I see how the sausage is made.

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