Rearden Commerce Reviews

Pros

* Open, relatively new tech stack
* CEO is great at building partnerships and raising capital

Cons

* Lack of focus and execution on the part of executive Mgmt
* Changing priorities and direction everyday
* Success is more to do with politics than competence
* Below market salaries
* High attrition rate at both junior and senior/exec mgmt levels

Advice to Senior Management

Need more focus and better execution. It's good to have a grand vision but you need a plan to get there.

Pros

Fairly current technology
Use of open technologies
First hand experience in dealing with large codebase

Cons

Significant amount of codebase is legacy and poorly written in parts which makes it harder to make quick changes
Too many changes in direction causing unnecessary churn at work

Advice to Senior Management

Need to have a vision and follow through to see it achieved and not change direction too frequently

Pros

Big vision, smart people, decent location. Company used to have "buzz" but has lost it - have not seen any proof that it can be recaptured.

Cons

Toxic political environment permeates the entire organization. With few exceptions the maximum shelf life of VP's is about two years until they leave because they figure out they made a mistake or are managed out. Huge technology debt to be paid for 10+ years of patchwork development on a stack developed by weak at best seed engineers. Still burning cash after an "F" funding round. May have been an attractive acquisition target at one time but believe company will be leap frogged by more nimble competitors and will only be a sad footnote in Silicon Valley - not the next big internet story.

Advice to Senior Management

Sell to one of the big partner companies and see if they can salvage some value from the massive efforts expended by hundreds of employees over the last 10 years.

Pros

Some smart colleagues work here, pay ok.

Cons

Bad senior management - constant change in strategy/focus. Drink their own kool-aid. CEO name drops constantly and relays anecdotes about famous CEOs blown away by RC commerce. But if it were true - wouldn't those CEO companies become owners or at least clients by now?

Advice to Senior Management

Pick a strategy and stick to it - follow through/execute

Pros

bright office space, some very bright people, good benefit, flexible working hours, large enough to achieve a level of stability not found in your typical start up

Cons

release cycle is too fast to achieve the level of stability desired, good work is not always rewarded, lack of communication between different departments

Advice to Senior Management

plan with long term vision, focus on getting the fundamentals right, slow down the release cycle, reward and recognize silent heroes

Pros

Some really good people still work there and you will we wowed by the technology so much so that you may falsely believe this is the place to be.

Cons

If you believe that Gorden Gecko was the hero of the movie Wall Street, then you will fit in here. If you have adapted your business principles, philosophies and your fundamentals in any way since 1986, you will probably have a difficult time here.

Advice to Senior Management

I would offer advice to exec management, but as they are incapable of hearing it unless coming from the VC community . . . .

Pros

Nice office environment. The people who work there are earnest, hard working and for the most part very capable.

Rearden has great partnerships with Chase and Amex - that's huge.

Cons

Over the last six months, most of Rearden's senior management was either fired or quit. They should have been forced to stay there and live with the consequences of their poor decisions. Instead, the people who stayed behind, will have to work twice as hard and have to deal with a legacy of bad judgment, especially in engineering.

Advice to Senior Management

Advice to the CEO, move out of the day to day management and become Chairman of the Board Emeritus.

Rebuild the engine for air, hotel and car.

Forget about the long tail.

Good luck.

Pros

Growing company, good funding, interesting space. In the three months I was there the work environment was fast paced and friendly. The company was growing and people seemed to enjoy there jobs. There were a number of smart people and the compensation was good.

Cons

When the market went bad the CEO decided to lay off 50 people including the whole marketing department. Lay offs were not based on performance or the business prospects of the comapny. They were sole based on Patrick Grady's poor management. The company has a subscription model and has continued to grow customers during the downturn. However, the whole marketing department was laid off without a thank you or any form of severance. Looking at the company history you can see that it is a bit of a revolving door. Unfortunately, the CEO does not respect or value employees. He is an amazing dealmaker but has no people management skills. This company needs a strong COO.

Advice to Senior Management

Patrick Grady, the CEO, is an amazing dealmaker with a vision but does needs to learn how to treat people. He also needs to get a strong COO to run the day to day operations of the company while he is off meeting with investors and partners.

Pros

Benefits are on par with others, and Rearden Commerce offers an opportunity to work on large-scale systems with heavy transaction loads.

Cons

Management is incompetent, and goals change constantly -- even hourly. Promotions are not based on ability, but by who the favorites are in the company.

Communication is poor, and everyone works within a silo.

Advice to Senior Management

Be honest, even when it hurts (which would be all the time with Rearden). Don't screw your customers. Don't change goals on a whim, think through the process. Do things right, so constant hotfixes and 911s aren't a daily event.

Pros

Incredible vision in a huge space; bright people and ideas; great business partners

Cons

Never enough people to get all the work done; difficult to get everyone to "think big"

Advice to Senior Management

I think it's important to work more with each and every employee at all levels of the organization so that everyone understands and BELIEVES what is possible.