Not as advertised - Account Executive Darktrace Employee Review

1.0
Oct 12, 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The potential to make money here is astronomical, the prices Darktrace charges is high and they can get away with it. The product itself is amazing, and actually does what its intended to do and is unique in a sense. Having ISR book meetings for you (although very rare)

Cons

Been meaning to make a review for month snow. There is a lot of things that are not right with Darktrace. For starts, when I was being interviewed over a year ago, I was promised that I would not make cold calls and have meetings booked for me, and that I'd be raking in commission. I was hooked because it sounded too good. Fast forward to 4 months into my role, I am being asked to make around 40-60 cold calls a day (as an AE this is abysmal), and with my manager pressuring me to call prospect's personal cell phones with no regard for privacy. The micromanagement in this company is at points unbearable, granted could be unique for my region, but getting constantly bombarded by your managers about whether you sent an email can be demoralizing. Commission with Darktrace is borderline theft. In my previous roles I was seeing 10% commission rates, with darktrace, youre realistically getting 2.5% on a deal, despite being an AE and doing the heavy lifting, you get 2.5%. Now they say its 5%, but they give you 2.5% now and the rest in a year, but if you're no longer employed they're no longer obligated to pay you, so a nice catch for them. But obviously the more you sell, the higher % you enter, with the highest being 9% in my region, but youd have to sell almost a mil to get there. Regarding expectations, they're very high. After 6-7 months you're expected to sell around 100k minimum monthly. All of this should have been a red flag to me, when all of the veterans in my office were gone in a span of a month. The company went public during my tenor, and despite multiple requests from reps and myself, nothing regarding employee well being has been instituted. Reps in other offices were dropping like flies because of the mental health aspect. My dismissal aswel was very questioable, despite being set for a good month and being on good terms with my management, one day, out of nowhere I get a call that its been decided that I was let go. Despite the troubles I went through to secure and revive deals, it was already all set in stone with nothing that can be done, felt like a really cold way to end, further plays into the demoralizing culture here. Advice to a job seeker: if you're one of those salespeople that only cares about money and truly nothing else, you will strive here. However if you want a place that offers more than just compensation, look elsewhere.

Explore other reviews about Darktrace

5.0
Jun 24, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

good pay, good culture and great tech sales exposure

Cons

lack of internal promotion path, just overall lack of vertical career trajectory

2.0
Jun 26, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Autonomy & Independence: You get great autonomy to build your own schedule. It operates very much like a true field sales motion, which is great if you value independence. Perks: There is a high degree of expense freedom, and the Sales Kickoffs are a definite highlight.

Cons

The company is currently gasping for air and is super misaligned. There is absolutely no sense of direction. The Go-To-Market (GTM) strategy obviously doesn't work because leadership changes strategy it every Half because of poor performance . Turnover is INCREDIBLY HIGH, people was congratulating me that I made it at Darktrace more than a year when I left, which is never a good sign for a company. CEO REPVUE- stated that only 15% of reps hit their goal attainment at Darktrace from it's reviews. If you apply here, you need to know exactly what you are getting into and be willing to work extremely hard just to help dig the company out of a hole.

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