ECommerce Giant with ton of Opportunities - Manager - Engineering Grainger Employee Review

4.0
Sep 15, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Company is stable with a very healthy balance sheet. No roller coasters (hire-layoff-hire-layoff). Stock has continued to grow in recent years. People are nice and easy to work with. Very little politics. The CEO is stoic and down to earth. The new tech senior leadership team (CTO, VPs, Dir) is pushing to run the company more like a tech company. (engineering excellence - cloud native, microservices, continuous delivery, xp, devops). Lot of smart engineers hired in recent years. Ton of opportunity to modernize the legacy systems and grow in the process and leave your mark as an engineer.

Cons

Pay could be better. Engineering salaries cannot really compete with Amazon or other big tech. This leads to attrition of top talent to big tech. While the Product Management group knows the business really well, they still struggle with agility and true product management. A lot of initiatives are still waterfally. Tons of legacy systems around. The company is well established and not really growing like a startup or midsized company would. Hard to move into management and beyond. Culture is quite traditional and stiff. Does not have a reputation for being tech savvy like an Amazon for instance.

Explore other reviews about Grainger

5.0
Jul 7, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great company to move up/around in. They have a ton of support although some of that support better than others. Definitely recommend joining the Grainger Team. Great for new and tenured sales people.

Cons

As you move up in the company it is political on if you get the role.

4.0
Jun 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Benefits are decent and reasonably priced. They offer a 401k match, BCBS insurance, FSA, HSA, dental, vision, life insurance, and accidental D&D coverage. They also do a 3‑to‑1 match for donations to non‑religious 501(c) organizations. There’s a big emphasis on volunteering, with plenty of opportunities to get involved. The building itself is beautiful, with a free on‑site gym, a coffee shop, real trees in the atrium, a waterfall, and a large cafeteria (though the food can vary). They’re also flexible about which days you come on‑site, depending on the team’s schedule. If I needed to switch a Monday for a Thursday, it was never an issue. My manager was also supportive of remote work on days when the weather made commuting difficult.

Cons

Admins do not get an annual bonus. They're really strict on Overtime, really weird about worrying about mini costs. Like they'll spend 50k on a week-long training but freak out if people want to rent a car while being in town. Can't buy lunch for this 3 hour meeting to cut costs, but we'll drop 10k on this other thing. It's also so unfair that some people get to work remotely and others are forced to come in 3 times a week, for the exact same roles. Every meeting is basically online, so it's just silly and a power trip.

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