Pros
Opportunity to work large accounts early in career Opportunity for promotion if you do well Great launchpad for starting sales career in cyber given cyber pays more than tradition SaaS tech sales. You can go to Darktrace for ~12 months and then leave to another cyber company to 1.5x-2x your base salary. So in one year you can make a base anywhere between 100k-130k as an enterprise AE somewhere else. You can skip multiple steps in your career by going here. No need to be an SDR or SMB rep. You can join as an enterprise rep right out of college or 1-3 years out. Many true enterprise reps have 5-10 years experience so when you leave you can command a salary that is way above your experience level. Some great, young people
Cons
The negative reviews you’ve read are spot on Base pay is under market Micromanagement is out of control: 2-3 internal meetings per day with your Director team (10-12 people usually). There are literally meetings on the calendar just to make sure people are working when remote. On the morning meeting everyone sets their goals for the day and on the EOD meeting everyone says if they hit their goals. This structure gets incredibly monotonous and the meetings are there just so management can feel like they are keeping track of everyone. Apart from the daily meetings, there are also 3-4 forecast calls a week and because the CRM is horrible, you waste time updating your directors and VPs about logistical info rather than talking deal strategy. Also depending on the Director these forecast calls can be used by management to publicly shame you in front of your peers for not hitting your numbers. I’m talking yelling and threatening your job in front of others. It feels like an elementary school teacher yelling at a student that is acting out. Darktrace has a horrible and high pressure sales culture. Because everything is measured monthly there is such a focus on short term results which leads management to pressure AEs by threatening their employment which leads to AEs pressuring their prospects/accounts for next steps. Because of this, Darktrace has a bad reputation in the market for being overly aggressive with prospects. Darktrace is good in that it gives young people the opportunity early in their career, but the flip side is that EVERYONE is under qualified for their current position. Because of this, management lacks experience and results to high pressure tactics to get results rather than actually developing their team by coaching. Most directors don’t know how to coach their reps. They don’t have the time or frameworks in place to get the most out of the reps. The directors are so time constrained that they only focus on active deals so new hires suffer and either sink or swim. Best advice for new reps, is to make friends with a good AE / team lead and get them to guide you and help you on calls because it’s rare to get that support from your director. If you are on the fence about joining Darktrace, I would think about it like this: If any of the following are true, then join: - you cannot get an AE role elsewhere for a higher base - you really want to get into cyber but can’t find an AE role elsewhere - you’re early in your career (just graduated or first or second job out of school) That said, if you do decide to join just know there will be a lot of stress that many can’t handle. It’s not a knock on you if you fall into that category but just know it going in. Everyone at Darktrace hits their breaking point at some point in their journey. AEs, team leads, directors, VPs, etc. There are stories/rumors that even VPs have had breakdowns of how much pressure upper management gives them. So it’s really a battle to decide to leave and get a higher base somewhere else or stay for the opportunity to close your current deals or look at a promotion. If you’re currently at Darktrace and don’t have a large pipeline and don’t see a promotion path I would suggest to look for a new job immediately. Overall I’m glad I joined Darktrace for where it got me, but I wouldn’t suggest it for those that can’t handle extreme pressure.