Groupon Reviews

Former Employee – worked at Groupon full-time for more than a year

Pros – Casual and fun environment. If you are looking for a social life and are unemployed, they will hire you if you have any kind of sales experience.

Cons – The company has gone in 100 directions and does not have a real plan. It is not a profitable company and that easily shows in that they do not even reimburse you if you want to send your clients a thank you card. They only care about the subscribers and not the merchants they work with. It is a good place to work at between real jobs because they will hire pretty much anyone. It is a complete mess where the upper level boys club or those who got in early will be rewarded while everyone else is considered cattle who will be used for awhile and then discarded. No growth in your position or chance to be promoted. The only reason they still exist is because they bought up 38 companies who were profitable but they have no efficient way to merge those companies into theirs. Sexual harassment is rampant with no recourse.

Advice to Senior Management – Do not take away bonuses at a drop of a hat.

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

Former Employee – worked at Groupon full-time for more than a year

Pros – Groupon has attracted some incredibly smart and driven people into one place. As such, it's a great place to pick up new skills and network.

Not really a pro, but after working at Groupon, my next job felt SO EASY because things run so smoothly compared to where I was coming from.

Cons – When I came to Groupon, I was looking for a culture that encouraged people to get things done and solve problems while minimizing political nonsense that is all too typical of most corporate offices. That's how the company was sold to me, and it turned out to be a lie. Groupon is the worst of all possible worlds. It is both corporate – meaning political battles about everything – AND disorganized in the way a startup is disorganized.

Management is mostly incompetent. Almost nobody has been with the company for more than two years, so there's no established process for how to do things. Projects are horribly planned in a top-down fashion and engineers get little to no input in the planning process, mostly because the company is struggling to meet its financial objectives and needs slave-driving managers to make everyone hit their unreasonable deadlines. It's just a reality of the industry. Daily deals sites are proving to be internet pyrite – shiny but worthless.

Also, the culture is awful. The engineering team basically went from two dozen people to well over two hundred in less than two years. How, you ask? Well, basically, Groupon bought out a bunch of startups and grafted them onto their existing technology group, and then paid a bunch of ex-Amazon and Microsoft people to join them. What this works out to is, instead of one engineering culture that everyone can get behind, you have twenty different groups that all fight each other constantly. There's not even agreement on what the chat channels should be used for.

In a two month span, the CTO, the VP of engineering, and the CEO all left the company. The first two of their own volition, and the latter forced to resign due to poor financial performance. The captains have abandoned their ship.

Read the other reviews on here. They all tend to have one thing in common: Groupon is an extremely chaotic place to work that functions as a nice, short-term resume-booster, but there is no long-term future at Groupon. I agree, with the caveat that Groupon will also make you question what you're doing with your life. After you work here, you may have a serious crisis of faith and consider living on a mountain and meditating for several years before you will be willing to go back to work. Groupon takes over your life and wills you with dread that you have staked yourself on the Hindenburg of late capitalism.

Turnover at Groupon is extremely high. I would say that more than 50% of my coworkers in the engineering department left shortly after one year. I myself only lasted about that long. There's just no reason to stay at such a miserable job when there are tons of programming jobs available and having Groupon on your resume will get you an interview almost anywhere. So if you do decide to apply here, do so with the intention of getting in and out, and start looking for a new job after six months.

Advice to Senior Management – Fire yourselves.

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

Current Employee – been working at Groupon full-time for more than a year

Pros – Relaxed work atmosphere
Lots of young people to work alongside
Gym in the building
Work near other startups

Cons – No career pathing, coaching, feedback, or management reviews
All raises are based on consecutive bell curves - you're lucky if you get a COLA raise
Senior leadership does not listen to their reports on almost all levels
Leadership looks out for revenue, not profit

Advice to Senior Management – Get rid of your bad leadership on all levels, start promoting from within, and give people something to work hard to achieve. There are great, dedicated people on your teams - listen to them.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Groupon as an intern for less than a year

Pros – Passionate, driven management in European region. Team growing like crazy; boundless opportunities. Real start-up feel. Diverse, driven team. Interesting projects.

Cons – Certain weeks had crazy long hours. Pay wasn't best, but pretty good for an internship. Didn't have silicon valley feel. Constant tension with many vendors; difficult to balance Groupon's interests with those of small vendors selling through website.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at Groupon part-time for more than a year

Pros – fun start up with loads of money to be made

Cons – was great before the bubble burst

Advice to Senior Management – find new ways to leverage the company to achieve more

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

Former Employee – worked at Groupon full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Awesome work environment when you are 100% to quota

Cons – Daily Deal Marketplace is experiencing fatigue

Advice to Senior Management – Improve Stock Price for Shareholders

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Groupon full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Fun environment with a lot of young people, you get direct work with your managers and RVPs, pays well if you work hard, casual work place.

Cons – If you are late to a territory you sell on - you might not get the best leads. But, you can easily make money regardless if you just put your head down and dial.

Advice to Senior Management – Bring back the self-empowerment for employees - get them to feel excited about every success!

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at Groupon full-time for more than a year

Pros – You will be among the smartest and most energetic young professionals in your field. If given the opportunity to work in a responsive market, you'll be able to make a decent amount of money.

Cons – Opportunity for advancement is very limited. Most Management positions are filled, and to reach a higher job status can be difficult depending on your market.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to the people on the floor. Selling became nearly impossible with all the hoops we had to jump through.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at Groupon full-time for less than a year

Pros – Fun environment (when you got to partake), newest cloud technology

Cons – Co-workers, management, lack of leadership/focus, lack of support to get work done

Advice to Senior Management – Have a plan, execute to the plan, have structured teams/roles, etc.

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

Current Employee – been working at Groupon full-time for less than a year

Pros – The people and atmosphere is amazing. Also management is great and the vision of the company is very inspiring. The location and building is great and everything about Groupon is very high quality. They really treat you well and it feels like they really care.

Cons – The compensation is not the greatest and the constant change gets annoying. There is not much opportunity for advancement within the company.

Advice to Senior Management – Stick with one plan for at least a year.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company