Pros
They can make decisions a bit faster being a smaller, privately-held company.
Cons
I want to confirm previous reviews of Digicert management in the very poor manner they have handled Mountain View employees that were previously with Symantec. I don't know how it is in Utah, but here is what we have seen: 1) Management is indeed very narrow minded with a one-size fits all mentality, they don't seem to consult with very experienced Symantec personnel and just make decisions from the top with little regard as to what they're actually doing. Our confidence that they can actually manage a combined company that is worldwide, ethnically diverse, on many different time zones and several times their original size is extremely questionable. 2) There is an attitude from core Digicert Utah employees that "we bought them" referring to the Symantec division (several times larger than the original Digicert) which is a load of crap. On paper it may show Digicert as the lead, but it was really a merger of the much larger Symantec eCommerce/Website Security division orchestrated by Symantec CEO Greg Clarke and VC firm Thoma Bravo, a major Digicert investor. So if Digicert wants to keep dividing the company and angering the much larger group of ex-Symantec employees, just keep it up. 3) Benefits have cheapened somewhat under Digicert and a major error has been to not replace annual stock RSUs we received from Symantec despite repeated promises from John Merrill for equivalent compensation. Digicert is privately held and does not have stock to grant, but some sort of extra compensation has been promised to replace the RSUs repeatedly, so Merrill and Thoma Bravo need to get busy and figure out how to replace this compensation such that we aren't experiencing a pay cut. If they don't address this very soon, there is definitely going to be an exodus of good employees. I personally ran a Glassdoor total compensation analysis and not only am I $15k below my general worth here in Silicon Valley, I am even more below compared to Apple's compensation for the exact same position. And FYI to management, Apple alone has hundreds of comparable jobs in my exact category open right now within 25 miles of our location. 4) Digicert has almost without exception promoted original Utah employees to lead all the higher-level company positions, sometimes over more experienced Symantec employees who are highly qualified. There seems to be a "good ol' boys" Utah inner circle they want to maintain close control over - this is no way to run a world-wide company. This cronyism has been documented before in previous Glassdoor reviews. 5) Management communication and consultation with almost everyone in Mountain View, to include mid- and higher level managers is absolutely abysmal, essentially non-existent. They keep saying "Yea, we need to improve communication" but NEVER do anything about it. I don't think they know what the word "transparency" even means. In summary, we'll give them a couple of months to right the ship and, if they don't make major changes, they may not have much of a company left outside of Utah.
