Rearden Commerce Reviews

Pros

Overall the atmosphere was pleasant.

Cons

However, turnover was high and low level management was incompetent and many employees felt that promotion was more decided on the basis employee personality rather than ability.

Advice to Senior Management

Ask employees to provide anonymous review about their boss.

Pros

Equity opportunity in well funded pre-IPO co. Could be a game changer on the web if vision is executed. Engineer talent is strong. CEO has a big ego drive and wants to win. Have some very strong engineering leaders who joined in the past year which is good to see.

Cons

less a downside more of a challenge, execution is hard.

Advice to Senior Management

share knowledge and continually remind those deeper in the co of the big picture vision. it is easy for a developer cranking code to get lost in the day to day and they need to see the big picture to stay motivated. also, lead more.

Pros

Charismatic and sales competent CEO. You need a job. Theoretically, they stress output rather then work hours, which is good but the reality is this: your performance is entirely dependent on your political success.

Cons

Very cut-throat. Be prepared to be judged by the opinions of others rather then your work output. Managers frequently forget your contribution to a project. An obstructive framework architecture with limited usefullness constantly gets in the way of engineering productivity. Everyone is afraid to mention it for fear of loosing political clout with senior engineers.

Advice to Senior Management

Pay closer attention to what your managers are doing and not doing. Managers need to do a better job of communicating expectations with employees. More communication and responsiveness is needed to solve interpersonal issues and access to company resources (people, software, etc).

Pros

Rearden commerce is an independent working environment.
The company has a very interesting technology
The company has a very interesting platform
The company has a very interesting business model

Cons

Lots of brainwashing about the potential company future success.
Stock value is made out to be worth millions, but really it isn't.
Benefits are cut without notice and with lots of talk about it's necessity to be gone so we can survive.

Advice to Senior Management

Not sure, lots of the problems stem from upper management

Pros

Parking, fine selection of restaurants in the area, reasonable pay

Cons

Management has no clue how to build or maintain a large software project. No software development lifecycle process. 30 minute build process. Best talent is wasted. Managers do very little listening. No group has any clue what any other group is doing. Highly political atmosphere. The entire engineering organization runs on hero worship.

Advice to Senior Management

Counting bugs and using Version One does not an agile process make. Run a real process. Set up a system to evangelize the work of each group and promote code re-use. Begin a real SOA. Listen to every engineer you've got.

Pros

Obviously, it is a pre-IPO company with a a head start on a vision of greatness. If executed properly, the potential for the platform is astronomical. Frankly, it is cool to be in on something game changing for potentially commerce as a whole, and be a part of building that greatness.

Cons

Some of what is built and marketed appears to be done within a bubble. Rather than seek assistance or even feedback from power users and support staff who use the product and hear feedback from actual customers, they rely on the clairvoyance and clinical user studies. With a bit of communication, there are a number of projects that could have been done better the first time rather than redone to fix what could have been avoided. On the flip side, it has been my observation that this process was prevalent at my previous employers as well.

Also, remember, this is a PRIVATELY funded venture, and with private funding comes risks. Rather than be caught unaware, senior management was proactive in reducing expenses (translation: firing people) to position the company for success in a down economy. Realistically, going back for more funds in this market would be extremely expensive or even impossible, so they made cuts quickly to position properly. I don't fault them for that.

Advice to Senior Management

Encourage and institutionalize the leveraging of internal experience in addition to the standard mantras of justification to fix things before they are built and avoid wasted effort.

Pros

None whatsoever. Maybe one... the CEO can sell. He is the best used car salesmen I have ever seen. The only problem is he cannot manage a company. Especially a start up which has to be nimble and reactionary. I guess this is a negative.

Cons

An egotistical CEO who cannot manage his way out of a wet paper bag. No transparency whatsoever. Upper management is accommodating to the CEO because they are afraid of their own jobs so they cater to impossible and asinine objectives. They are scared rabbits who at times are out for themselves. This is definitely not a meritocracy.

Advice to Senior Management

Get a clue.

Pros

Strong customer base, decent business model, solid financing from Chase and American Express, technical challenges around scaling

Cons

The management team changing often, high turnover, employee morale issues

Advice to Senior Management

Find ways to make product more exciting, both to customers and employees who are building it

Pros

mostly "vision" B.S. from Patrick Grady. It wears of after a few months, but he is very talented at making a first impression, and acting as a great visionary.

Cons

deceptive and backstabbing management, long line of VPs coming and going, constant share dilution, lack of respect fro engineers, mostly mindless busy work. High confidence that you will get screwed even in the case of success

Advice to Senior Management

it is a small valley and unless the poisonous backstabbing internal culture is changed it will be harder and harder to attract new people and keep old ones

Pros

This is the easiest job I've ever had. After they paid me hefty relocation and hiring bonuses. I get to sit around, drink tea, not only work from home a lot of the time, but after my salary was cut, I took a part time job for extra money, and do that job at the office. Once I showed my underlings who's boss, I got them to shut the hell up and stop pestering me to help them.

Cons

Deceit. Nobody in upper management told me one honest thing from my first interview until now. Their vision is pure fiction. They even lied about their financials. This company culture is sickening. I spend my days counting the time until I vest, so I don't have to forfeit my bonuses.

Advice to Senior Management

Do something useful with your lives.