Solid company with room for improvement in the area of company culture - Anonymous employee Cloudera Employee Review

3.0
Jul 27, 2017
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Cloudera is a solid company with solid engineering practices, a wealth of enterprise experience on staff, and the best machine learning/data analysis platform available. No doubt they are and will continue to be a success.

Cons

However, there are two areas where it's time they started paying attention: 1) quality of front-line managers; 2) sexism throughout most levels of the organization. Interestingly, these two problem areas feed each other. I've heard front-line managers openly make racist remarks--not worker bees, but managers, who represent the company. For example, I heard a manager of a team of 14 employees make the following remark openly without lowering his voice, "It would be a lot better if there weren't so many <color> people in PA!" When this male manager said this, everyone around him looked uncomfortable, but he is a manager--none felt they could really correct him. I've also heard managers openly diss people who report to them to other direct reports on their team. Seems like a real morale-killing practice. Who wouldn't think to themselves, "Wow, I wonder what they say about me when I'm not in the room?" As for sexism, it's like a heavy blanket lying over the building at times. It's subtle. After all, most Cloudera employees are well educated, intelligent, and quite sophisticated, but it is clear that women have to be at least 50% to 75% better at anything to be "part of the team." This kind of pervasive sexism, leads to "Queen Bee" behavior so that even the few female leaders who are brought on, respond to the sexism by trying to distance themselves from other women and by trying to be "one of the boys."

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Cloudera Response
8y
Thank you for your review. Cloudera values an open and transparent workplace. While we appreciate your feedback, it's upsetting to see this review without having the ability to address the issues the writer highlights in the “cons” section because of the anonymity of the review. The issues written about don't reflect responses and input we receive from the many feedback channels (both anonymous and direct) available to Clouderans, including a 24-hour ethics hotline, regular employee surveys, the HR team, and our overall open door policy. Central to Cloudera’s culture is the fact that we are all in this together, that each of us matters. Treating one another with respect regardless of gender or race is foundational, and we believe that’s made clear in both policy and practice at Cloudera. We take maintaining our culture very seriously. We provide ongoing training to managers through programs like Big Leaders, Bias Disrupters and Managing within the Law. We invest in our Diversity and Inclusion initiatives which are developed and driven by our Diversity & Inclusion council. Our council is made up of a mix of passionate employees and HR. Some of our activities this year include the launch of multiple Employee Resource Groups, a number of Women in Leadership panel discussions, monthly speakers representing Diversity & Inclusion viewpoints as well as Bias Disrupter discussions across Cloudera . We regularly review compensation data closely for bias related to women and people of color, and ensure our HR programs eliminate unconscious bias as much as possible. It is the responsibility of all Clouderans to report such behavior through any of the channels stated above so action can be taken to preserve our open and accepting culture. To the writer of this review: please provide more detail regarding these issues internally immediately so that we may address them effectively. You can do this confidentially or directly via your manager or HR Business Partner, any other leader per our open door practice, or our 24 hour anonymous ethics hotline.

Explore other reviews about Cloudera

5.0
Jun 10, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Everyone is willing to help and wants to see you succeed Lots of opportunities to grow within the company/organization Flexible work/life balance Strong Technology

Cons

Multiple platforms - troubling at first to balance between them all, but after some time it is a breeze.

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Cloudera Response
3d
Thank you for the 5-star review. We are delighted to hear that you find Cloudera to be a supportive environment with strong growth opportunities and great work-life balance. We also appreciate your feedback regarding our multiple platforms. We are glad to hear that navigation becomes smoother over time, and we are proud to have you on the team in Austin.
5.0
Jun 10, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

* Amazing and supportive community with highly talented and approachable colleagues. * Welcoming, inclusive, and friendly culture that makes it easy to feel part of the team. * Excellent technology stack built around Apache Software Foundation projects and modern engineering practices. * Strong open-source-first mindset that promotes innovation, transparency, and collaboration. * Flexible work arrangements with the option to work from home, while office attendance is encouraged to foster collaboration and maintain a strong sense of community. * Gorgeous offices worldwide that provide an inspiring and comfortable work environment. * Plenty of opportunities to learn, grow, and work on impactful projects alongside exceptional engineers.

Cons

* The highly flexible work-from-home culture, while appreciated by many, can sometimes lead to sparsely populated offices. Employees who value face-to-face interactions and spontaneous collaboration may find it harder to build connections and discover new opportunities. * Processes and organizational structures are intentionally lightweight, but this can occasionally result in unclear ownership, shifting priorities, and coordination challenges when deadlines approach. * The strong emphasis on autonomy means teams may operate differently, which can make cross-team coordination and planning less predictable. * Communication and collaboration often require a proactive approach, especially in a distributed environment.

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Cloudera Response
3d
Thank you for your 5-star review and your eight years of dedication to Cloudera. We are glad you value our inclusive culture, open-source mindset, and talented team. We appreciate your constructive feedback on cross-team coordination and distributed collaboration. Your insights are incredibly valuable as we continue to improve our planning processes while maintaining the workplace flexibility our employees enjoy.
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