A9.com Reviews

Current Employee – been working at A9.com

Pros – Work is challenging, compensation is better than many other offers, lots of smart engineers, lots of search technology here

Cons – SDE's have to do carry a pager. Not much face time with manager each week.

Advice to Senior Management – N/A.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at A9.com full-time

Pros – Free snacks, coffee, fruit and competitive compensation package

Cons – Management is very "young" , micro management, and lacks experience. Very political. Overall atmosphere is a very negative one. Promoted unqualified person as a manager, ending up destructive to team. The reason of most people stay is because of 4-year RSU allocation and 2-year sign-on bonus.

Advice to Senior Management – Do not promote a person to be a manager who is not qualified, it's very negative to team and folks. Micro management is a killer to the team.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm not optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at A9.com full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Free snacks, coffee, pretty nice building.

Cons – Management is very "young" and lacks experience. Very political. Overall atmosphere is a very negative one. Very hard to recruit and retain top talent because of negative opinion of company.

Advice to Senior Management – Management should look to external sources for ways to grow their experience and seriously consider the feedback of it's employees and executives (as opposed to saying that it considers the feedback but not actually taking action on it)

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at A9.com

Pros – large interesting datasets, nice location, very competent engineers, flexible working hours, solid Amazon infrastructure, small company culture

Cons – limited space for career growth
most of the product decisions are made in Seattle, feels a bit like technology outsourcing center

Advice to Senior Management – give greater ability to A9 to start and run independent projects to leverage small company advantages. More collaboration with research community outside A9/Amazon

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at A9.com

Pros – good mix of short term (weeks) and long terms (months/year) projects.
surrounded by smart people
Friday sports
startup spirit and yet (Amazon's) deep pockets and one-of-a-kind infrastructure

Cons – lunch can be expensive (downtown Palo Alto)

Advice to Senior Management – better project planning

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at A9.com

Pros – 1. Things are not very hectic.
2. Reasonably smart people around you.
3. Small company feel
4. Library in men's restroom

Cons – 1. Things move really really slowly
2. Depending on which team you are on, you may have to deal with some politics
3. Most of the management is not tech savvy.

Advice to Senior Management – 1. Give 20 percent time to engineers
2. Emphasize quality rather than quantity
3. It might be nice idea to have more of a flat hierarchy.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at A9.com

Pros – free snacks, free coffee, foosball, ping pong, caltrain proximity, lot of lunch options, good location, great human resources department, great people

Cons – poor management, lack of leadership so great employees eventually left the company, apathy from management that created passive aggressive work environment

Advice to Senior Management – there should be more continuity between management/department heads and with employees. also less emphasis should be put on lunch time options and employee perks and more on career development

Current Employee – been working at A9.com

Pros – - Good technology
- Great people
- good work life balance
- friday sports

Cons – very flat heirarchy and not the best benefits. No cash bonus awards. Not many customer facing opportunites

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend