Digital River Reviews

Pros

The comraderie between co-workers makes working at Digital River very enjoyable. For the most part, employees are SMEs and very dedicated, which leads to high quality output.

Cons

Digital River is a very demanding company which is reflected in the high paced work environment. Many people regularly work 50+ hours a week. The company is also unwilling to implement a policy around telecommuting or flexible work schedules. In some departments, politics play a very strong role, instead of personal performance, in determining promotions and success.

Advice to Senior Management

Digital River needs to modernize its technology infrastructure, tools, and operating policies to match other market leaders online and in company management.

Pros

Constant growth and expansion lead to a lot of career opportunities. The people you work with are great, as is the general environment. It still has the feel of a start up company but is far more mature. There is a solid business model and a cost conscious culture which leads to great profitability. The company is a world leader in the industry and has a very solid acquisition strategy. Recent decisions to invest in the company itself proves that the snerior leadership team is trying to build for the long haul and not just focusing on increasing profits quarter over quarter.

Cons

Long hours. Long turn times for project completion. Lack of communication from senior leadership. The company is maturing and going through some common growing pains which in turn can be very frustrating.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to the people in the trenches.

Pros

Dynamic, exciting place to work. Global...but with a feeling of family. You really have to be a special type of person to survive and thrive at DR.

Cons

DR moves very fast. Sometimes a change happens and it happens faster than the communication can happen.

Advice to Senior Management

Provide more consistency. What is wrong for one person should be also wrong for others.

Pros

no micro-managing, fast paced environment so nothing really gets stale. Wii-lympics, office mini-golf, monthly bring dog to work day and options to work from home. Most everyone I've worked with knows what's going on and is not clueless like i've worked with at other companies. I love the job and love the company.

Cons

some days you get to into getting things done you end up putting in a long day or 2 during the week. Sometimes managers get too busy to respond to emails so you have to ping them again for the necessary info but it all works out.

Advice to Senior Management

Keep up the good work by soliciting employees for ideas, suggestions and overall critiques. Not commonly found in most workplaces.

Pros

Digital River is a fast-paced and fast-growing company with tremendous opportunities. There is an incredibly fun culture that encourages employees to not only work together, but have a good time doing so. There is access to cutting-edge technology and a lot of perks in addition to standard benefits offering (e.g. free beer on Friday's, bring-your-dog-to-work day, indoor mini-golf tournaments). Employees are given a great deal of autonomy and are empowered to make an impact from their first day at DR, without a great deal of "red tape" that is often associated with a company of this size or larger. Employees are consistently challenged here!

Cons

Consistency in strategic direction and alignment among departments and functional areas. There are instances in which it is difficult to focus, due to the varied business models and platforms, both in core e-commerce and peripheral services, that are supported. Many of these are attained through aquisition and do not seem fully incorporated into the parent company. While DR seems to value employees, salaried compensation does not necessarily keep up with the local market value based on companies of similar size and industry.

Advice to Senior Management

Establish consistency in measuring success from department to department to facilitate cooperation and collaboration. Recognize associates based on tangible contributions and not merely by how 'hard' they work.

Pros

They pride themselves on hiring smart people, and they have some dotcom-era perks like free beer and a game room that you won't find elsewhere in the area.

Cons

There's limited growth potential and it can be frustrating trying to get the information you need to do your job. It definitely feels like their period of high growth is over and they're just hanging on.

Advice to Senior Management

none

Pros

The company seemly does ok at sales so it could be fairly stable. So i would just take the ride.

Cons

My first line manager is incompetent at motivating employees, not giving prompt feedback and only listening to Sr. management.

Advice to Senior Management

Demote the stupid first line manager to be developer. He is tarnishing all the effort Sr. Management has put forward.