IXL Learning reviews

- Whether it was fair or not, I got the sense that a majority of IXL employees didn't feel fully empowered in their roles. Most employees are hired to execute IXL's vision, not to define it. - Roles are narrowly defined and many have repetitive responsibilities. Cross-team internal mobility is rare, which exacerbates this problem. This model might work well for some, but it wasn't ideal for me, and I found growth difficult. - Decision making power is heavily concentrated at the top of the org chart. The CEO & COO are still very active in all facets of the product & company operations. It's possible to earn enough trust to have a say in major decisions, but for most that's a very long process. To be fair, the CEO & COO have a strong feel for the product and its users, and other people who earn decision making power usually are the highest performers. - Concentrated decision making would be more OK (I doubt any successful companies use consensus decision making as a long term strategy) if the strategy-level decisions were more frequently good ones. Despite the CEO's track record as a 'visionary' in the space (it's admittedly very good), recent decisions have been more miss than hit. - The company is slow moving. This is in part because the quality standard is so high, which is a good thing, but it takes a long time to get to obvious features, and smaller teams in the space are moving at a faster pace, which gives me doubts about the company maintaining its level of success long term. - The CEO's management policy could be described as "my door is always open, but I'm not going to be the one to walk through it". The longer I was at the company, the more I get the sense that he was out of touch with the culture / problems on the ground. - HR was kind of a mess and difficult to work with. - Given the timing and content of a lot of the reviews here, I am strongly suspicious that many of them are fake. A lot of fluff reviews appear after bad ones, and most of the people I knew at IXL would have more insightful pros/cons than the benefits (they're fine but hardly notable -- average to slightly below average for the area depending on the role) and vague notions of 'growing pains'. If those suspicions are true (again, no hard evidence), that's a disservice to potential candidates because it buries valuable opinion with misleading information, and I find that personally insulting.

This lower position is just a step above temp duties, so it's is very basic, primarily dedicated to sign-in issues. During the busy season, you will process over 60 sign-in emails per day, usually more, which is incredibly repetitive and mind-numbing. Honestly, this position shouldn't be limited to college graduates, I did nothing here that I hadn't learned in high school or basic web surfing. There isn't too much room to move up. The new product serves kids, and is really well designed, so the job isn't tough. Their legacy product serves college students, I can't recommend that position unless the salary is unusually high. Silicon Valley is quickly becoming inhospitable for those making an average salary, and this position paid less than average. It's a good short-term gig for a fresh graduate or if you want a foot in the door, but I can't recommend this specific, lower position to anybody who needs a living wage for the area. After ten months, I was still paying rent mostly from savings, living a fairly humble lifestyle. There seemed to be an attitude that since I got a few hundred in perks, I should be ok with missing out on a few thousand in pay. It's heartbreaking, as I had big plans for this place and my family, and that was what pushed me to move on.