Digital River Reviews in Minneapolis-St. Paul, MN Area

Pros

Very flexible work environment. Great benefits and a great work environment.

Cons

Too reliant on a few large clients.

Advice to Senior Management

Focus more on the core business.

Pros

nice working cubicles(accessories, chairs, desk ) , working environment , independence in working hours, good benefits as a company employee , recreational areas , cafeteria, challenging tasks

Cons

very bad admin staff and especially Human resource department , sometimes it takes weeks to get reply from them and you have to push many times to get things resolved , team leaders supports but still confused and lacks management techniques to deal situation and if a issues arises , blames and finger pointing are commonly observed. no proper way to discussion and managers say they will look into issues but don't help much

Advice to Senior Management

more robust way to report issue anomalously and hard measure to tackle problems arising in staff , and HR dept should respond due diligently

Pros

Work culture, people and perks. Flexible timings. Great technical leadership. Good place to be if you want to work in a software engineering shop. Extremely cohesive engineering teams.

Cons

Too much driven by client and competition. Not very strategy driven. Senior management still trying to figure out where it wants to be. Too many strategic shift in last couple of years.

Advice to Senior Management

Think long term. Think where you want to be in 5-7 years.

Pros

Opportunity to work with a global leader in ecommerce, particularly for the software, consumer electronics and increasingly game industries. Digital River also demonstrates respect for its employees, provides a good work/life balance and makes its senior management highly accessible to staff and customers. I think this is a great place for someone to start their career and have opportunities to take on a lot of professional responsibility and growth.

Digital River also has an impressive client roster (e.g., Microsoft) and a huge emphasis on international.

Cons

While Digital River has very solid and broad technology and infrastructure, it may not offer the most "cutting edge" technology / innovation or charged climate one might find at a social networking, app, or other "sexy" start up, for those seeking that type of environment. Like many larger companies, Digital River is also still working to improve collaboration across business silos.

Advice to Senior Management

None.

Pros

There are some really good employees at Digital River. The casual dress and environment were very comfortable and helpful when you work so many hours.

Cons

There are some departments in the company that are suppose to be great to work in, the data warehouse group is not one of them. My average work week after 16 months was 64 hours. If your a hard worker, this company takes advantage of your knowledge and they work you to death. They make empty promises to train you and promote you but it never happens. They are not willing to let you attend any training because of the crazy amount of work that needs to be done. They do NO planning, and just throw out delivery dates with absolutely no idea of how long the work will actually take, they just expect you to kill yourself to meet the deadlines.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop, slow down and listen to the workers. Planning and analysis really are good things. Let your employees go to training, let them learn new skills and promote those who work hard, no matter what department they are in. Set realistic deadlines so that employees don't burn out. Reward those who work hard and get rid of the dead weight.

Pros

Many very smart, very hard-working professionals. You can leanr a lot and build very valuable relationships. Top shelf customers can also be a source of learning.

Cons

Top top management is not up to snuff in this very competitive and complex space. The strategic mistakes made at the top offset much of the good work done by so many. The Board ought to interview the top 10 customers.

Advice to Senior Management

Start really listening to the backbone of the company, the long-term Directors and VPs that know the business. Then commit to the right priorities and put the investment behind them. Don't switch "top priorities" at the drop of a hat. Call on the customers and really listen, instead of just talking at them.

Pros

A great group of people to work with on a daily basis. The team is very intelligent, creative and dedicated to moving the company forward.

Cons

Conflicting corporate values create friction (by design) that can be harmful to the overall company. Different departments have different goals that cause them to compete for resources that are truly needed to get their jobs done.

The speed at which the company operates is a bit addictive - however, can be detrimental when projects are done too quickly, or not completed beyond phase one. More often than not, if it's not completed the first time around, you will not get resources to finish what was started.

Advice to Senior Management

The team needs to work closer together, to allign to our goals and objectives so we support each other instead of having to choose only one winner.

Pros

Digital River is a very fast paced company. Things can move and change very quickly. The organization is focused on innovation and growing revenues for our clients.

Cons

The challenging piece at DR is having a healthy balance between work and life. Due to the fast paced nature of the company, expectations are high and things are needed to be completed asap. This unfortunately can impact your 'life' portion of the balance and cause you to be out of balance.

Advice to Senior Management

I think that leaders within the organization can do a better job at listening to the employees and stack ranking the priorities. With the organization moving as quickly as it is, this can sometime be a challenge for the leaders to do.

Pros

The Company provides you considerable leeway in solving the technical challenges you face in creating a product that is capable of adapting to the demands placed on it.

My Manager is a great individual - very supportive and (dare I say it) a caring person. If it weren't for the people in the trenches, the company would not exist.

So, the summary? Great people in the trenches.

Cons

I enjoy the people I work with in the various groups - I've met new friends that I will have for many years to come. The people at the various levels lower than Group VP's are wonderful, fantastic people. However, when you start assessing people, and politics, of Group VP's and above it is nothing but frenetic, unstructured, unguided, unproductive chaos.

We spend far too much time and energy chasing the "crisis du jour" and context switching between constantly changing priorities. This can be very frustrating and, ultimately, leaves you with a sense of adding no value to the organization at the end of the day.

Advice to Senior Management

As you look at the Organization and how things play out, one thing is painfully clear: the lack of strategy and direction and the extreme "chase the shiny bottle" approach to playing organizational "wack a mole" is being driven by the CEO, Joel Ronning. He simply needs to be replaced and a leader with a vision, strategy and steady hand needs to be put in place.

Pros

You'll here it over and over... It's the people. There is a great staff at Digital River.

Cons

There is an acquisition strategy, but no integration strategy. Acquisitions are left to fend for them selves. There is no corporate training on the tools provided by the acquisitions. It's an abnormally competative environment which can be very combustable at times.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employees about what needs to be done, instead of only listening to clients. If you can satisfy the needs of the people running your business on behlaf of your largest clients, odds are you will provide a very good tool set for self service clients as well.