Liquid Web Inc. Reviews

I have been working at Liquid Web Inc. full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – + Free booze twice a year.
+ Free food every other friday.
+ Free drinks all the time.
+ Very relaxed dress code.
+ Hard to get fired.
+ Possible certification opportunities.

Cons – + Rarely is able to hire great talent due to low salary offerings.
+ Low starting wages for the industry.
+ Hard to get raises.
+ Upper management gives middle management all the responsibilities and none of the power to solve problems.
+ Everyone works very hard to make it look like they are working very hard.
The culture at LW was once very awesome. As time passed and the company grew it was forced to get more corporate and the trend continues today. It seems every month we have a new set of rules and policies.

Advice to Senior Management – Pay your people what they are worth or you will continue to lose all the talent you have until there is no one left besides the desperate and the dumb.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Liquid Web Inc. full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Relaxed work environment
Great coworkers
Opportunities to learn a lot of cool technologies
One person can make a difference on a team
Opportunities for training are improving

Cons – Management comprised entirely of people promoted from within and without previous management experience
No strong leadership or clear vision
Many departments staffed entirely by amateurs due to lack of outside hiring
HR powerless and not particularly competent
Little to no delegation of authority, lots of micromanagement

Advice to Senior Management – Hire people who are excellent and let them do their jobs without constant meddling. Provide a vision and enable your employees to make that vision happen, then get out of the way.

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

I have been working at Liquid Web Inc. full-time

Pros – The work environment, benefit package, and small perks are good. 401k, flexible scheduling, no dress code to speak of, company parties, free food every other week, free beverages, not much internal structure or red tape, etc.

Cons – Still operates like a small web hosting / VPS company and has the technical debt and executive decision making that reflects that.

95% of employees are under paid. The revolving door of inexperienced employees inbound, and talented veterans outbound undermines any serious attempts at competing with larger, more competent companies. The number one reason for attrition is lack of competitive pay.

Liquid Web operates on a "me too" product development agenda. It's hard to get excited about anything happening internally since some other company has already done it, and probably done it better.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop operating like middle managers. The job of leaders is not to choose specific technologies, make technical decisions, nor micromanage the decisions of directors and department heads. A leader simply states the problem to be solved and gets out of the way. If you can't trust those under you to solve those problems competently then you need different people.

At the other end of the spectrum, hire a dedicated recruiter with a budget and negotiating power to solicit top talent. You cannot build an innovative, successful company by sitting on post-interview resumes for 2 months and having all salary negotiations funnel through one person.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Liquid Web Inc. full-time

Pros – It's a great place to start out. Schwag, free food Fridays. You can leave for a competitor out of state.

Cons – When you're experienced, it's time to leave. One day you will realize free food Fridays is worth approximately $00.15 an hour. No incentives or appreciation for the people who excel. Well, there is, it's getting a job with a Liquidweb competitor out of state.

Advice to Senior Management – They don't listen to advice.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Liquid Web Inc. full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Laid back environment(Not very corporate), generally a good group of people, wide variety of expertise. Fair amount of opportunity to move laterally to other positions in the company to continue to keep work interesting. Puts together a good number of events for the employees to take part in, parties, trips to sporting events.

Cons – Gives way to many chances to people that are messing up badly, that in other companies would likely lead to immediate termination. Handling of improvement ideas hasn't been the best in the past years, unsure how this has changed recently.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Liquid Web Inc. full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Middle Management is very laid back, overall work environment is non-stressful. There are perks like tickets to games and a couple annual parties. Good place to pick up some real life IT skills if you don't have any previous experience.

Cons – Pay is lacking. Anyone with actual talent usually leaves the company as soon as they get a chance. Company hires a lot of people with little to no skill, so that can creating a frustrating environment at times. Change is slow and dealing with internal politics and red tape becomes a normal part of the job the longer you work there.

Advice to Senior Management – There is still a number of bright employees, try your best to keep them. Involve more people into the future of the company. Right now it feels like upper management is in it's own world and it's all very secretive what is going on.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at Liquid Web Inc. full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Each day I wake up and go into work I am filled with joy and wonderment of what will occur on this shift, every changing are the task and duties to keep the mind stimulated.

Cons – Much of the needed change is slow to come due to executive approval becoming a bureaucratically complex game of stroking ones ego.

Advice to Senior Management – Bring in a professional executive training company to help develop skills in managing task and decisions at an executive level. Without proper training, one could not do any job at this company; why would running it be any different. Overall, this company is fantastic so let's keep moving in this direction!

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

I have been working at Liquid Web Inc. full-time for more than a year

Pros – Annual Christmas and Boat Party, Free soda, Trips to Lions game, Tigers Game, Cedar Point, Red Wings game along with free movie outings and yearly bonuses.

Cons – Company is still growing it's roots and has some organizing to do but overall not many cons.

Advice to Senior Management – You handle your employee's well but need to work on departments individually to help bring more success/business to the company.

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

I have been working at Liquid Web Inc.

Pros – Great for beginners and people with little experience.

You learn something new everyday, as you are surrounded by brilliant people.

Good place to learn and build up knowledge-base.

Once done working here for at least a year, you can land a job making over 15k-20k more a year anyplace else.

Unlimited overtime (up to 10 hours a week).

Cons – Starting rate of pay is not comparable to industry standards.

Degrees, certifications, previous work experience or current knowledge are not taken into account to determine rate of pay.

Promotional opportunities above supervisor or trainer are scarce or non-existent.

There are only jobs here, no careers.

Slightly micromanaged.

Lack of professionalism and structure (work atmosphere too relaxed).

Advice to Senior Management – Offer a starting rate of pay that is competitive with the industry that does not keep the employee indentured.

Offer tuition reimbursement for employees that wish to actually get training to help them grow personally as well as professionally.

Offer management and executive job opportunities to others besides friends and old schoolmates of the CEO.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I worked at Liquid Web Inc.

Pros – -Good starter for those with limited education and/or experience.
-Seems to be in a decent financial position compared with other industries
-Provided some benefits that other hourly employers in the same pay range would not

Cons – -I'm not really impressed with fringe benefits--save money on that and provide higher pay or a training program
-Pay "bumps" not really that great
-Lack of training; management seems to have the Wal-Mart approach of being OK with turnover
-Advancement was non-existent
-Lower management had some "bad apples" (very few) that were a little bit of a turn-off and...not helpful
-Upper management ranged from elusive to immature
-Metrics of job performance were not always accurate
-This was a typical nanny-management job, so expect to have some of that (sort of goes with the territory).

Advice to Senior Management – Offer real education opportunities and regular training for everybody. As another person said, don't act as if your employment needs aren't mutual with the employee. Although I am very grateful for my time at LiquidWeb, a job is not a gift: employees fulfill a need of the employer. Mutual respect and appreciation is important, especially with this type of work.