Ning Inc Reviews

Pros

Small company, but not too small - great people - Everyone is approachable and the customers are very cool. Good optimistic feeling about where the company is going - and everyone seems to have a chance to share their ideas.

Cons

Commute from the city - but caltrain pass helps. Still some hangover from the past org before the switchover but things seem to be looking up.

Advice to Senior Management

Less meetings ;) also bring in more customers to talk to us - or the president. need to hire more engineers.

Pros

If you are motivated, passionate, and looking for a place where your great ideas won't fall on deaf ears, then Ning is the place for you. Teams are made up of bright, hard-working (but efficient), collaborative folks who leave their egos at home but bring a sense of pride and humor to their work. Did I mention the free lunches? Every day? If you're a talented, tech-savvy vegan...my goodness, APPLY NOW.

Cons

Sometimes the HVAC gets out of whack. Dress in layers ;)

Advice to Senior Management

Our UX could use some TLC. Don't be afraid to invest in tools that will breed efficiency and consistency across mobile, tablet and desktop. We owe that to our users.

Pros

-The people are amazing - it's one of the best assembled teams to work with. Everyone brings a lot to the table and has a lot of responsibility but it's very collaborative so employees are constantly learning from each other as well.
-Even though the company has gone through a lot of changes and growing pains, we have a very transparent and caring management team. They openly talk about what decisions are being made, why they're being made, and how they affect everyone. Plus, employees have ample opportunity to ask questions and receive honest answers about the future direction of the company.
-We're growing, but it's still a small enough company where you aren't pigeonholed. Employees are able to have ownership and see the impact of their work - which is much harder to do at a larger company.

Cons

-There has been a ton of change this past year and morale was low for a good part of it. However, as we've been able to see the successes of making those changes, morale is getting better.
-It is still hard to have the best work-life balance, but that's what any start-up (early stage or growing) offers.

Advice to Senior Management

-Continue to talk to employees and understand where they want to go with their careers and help make that growth happen at Ning.

Pros

The team at Ning was amazing. Very consistently smart and motivated engineers that really wanted to do the right thing.
Great advocacy and ops teams help developers concentrate on building new software and understanding what customers really want.

Cons

Remarkably poor management, especially around senior leadership and product. Its kind of amazing that the same team that failed so miserably at building a product people are willing to actually pay for is now at it for a second time. The definition of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Now there's a Ning logo next to insanity in the dictionary.

Advice to Senior Management

Replace everyone that led product definition and designed the product development process. Let engineers run the show the way they used to and stop pretending you know things you don't.

Pros

Awesome people and colleagues to work with

Cons

Organizational change is hurting focus

Advice to Senior Management

Organizational change.

Pros

Working with very talented engineers, good team work, interesting technology, lot of growth opportunities, fairly good salary, nice benefits, good location

Cons

Company seems to be lacking execution focus and they are scrambling to find out / implement features that would make company profitable

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing specific

Pros

Nice salaries and almost everyone is fun to be around. Free lunches are nice.

Cons

Quality of free lunch can be quite mediocre. Management is not transparent enough. Too scared to make hard decisions. The technology is straight out of 1999. Don't work here if you want exposure to cutting edge software.

Advice to Senior Management

Drop the free lunches and use the extra money to go back to business management school.

Pros

Incredibly smart engineering team. Really cool and interesting problems to solve, along with some serious scalability concerns. You also get to work with some cutting edge technologies.

Cons

Upper management doesn't value any actual data analysis at all. Decisions are made and changed on a whim, leaving engineers floundering as to direction. There is also some degree of cargo cult programming when it comes to technology, and the prevailing opinion about what works, and what doesn't.

Advice to Senior Management

Nothing really.

Pros

Ning has the best engineers/peers I've ever worked with, period. Free lunches (really good about three times/week). Friendly relationship between managers and employees. Constant, open communication: there's a weekly all-hands and department-specific meetings about as often. Ning is also solving the hardest Internet-scale problems.

Cons

Lots of interviews. You'll be doing at least one interview a week since the company is growing.
Tough interviews. The bar is set very high.

Advice to Senior Management

Make sure to preserve the company culture, even though the company is growing. Make sure Ning only hires the best people.

Pros

Money was pretty good.
Free lunches.
Downtown Palo Alto is a great location to work in.
That's all I can think of.

Cons

Bad management (old CEO who is now gone)
Parking is bad
Product is clunky
Constant turnover - people leaving all the time and new ones coming in

Advice to Senior Management

They already did what they needed to do a long time ago, change CEOs. It remains to be seen if they can clean up the mess left behind in the engineering organization.