Acumen Reviews

Cons

The company is not a typical tech company and so there is some challenge to the compensation. The company continues to make great improvement with culture, management and transparency.

Cons

Acumen is a government contractor and so is not able to pay as well as tech firms in the bay area.

Cons

-Management is horrible. Although some people have better experience with managers depend on the specific teams, most of the managers here are narcissistic and full of themselves. They make you work long hours with no appreciation, Some managers are particularly hypocrites, claiming that they are open to feedback and suggestions, when in reality are only self centered with their ways of doing certain things, and gaslighting you later to make you feel bad about yourself.
-Poor culture. Employees here are nice and (perhaps) smart, but in reality are just new grads from undergrad and graduate programs who had no previous working experience and don't know how to socialize like a normal person. The common pattern is working from 10-9.
-No career development. The job titles and descriptions are incredibly vague and nobody tells you how to work to get to the next level. Although it has a lot to do the fact that almost all upper management are males relatives and friends of the current CEO. Performance reviews are just formality-nobody really cares about your growth!!
-Weak benefits. No incentives for carpooling despite that most people live in the city and commute 30-40 min for work. Once-a-month company lunch/donuts, and it's just bagels and fruits for rest of the month. Insurance plans offered are also useless when you get sick.
-PTO policy. Although it's not unlimited PTOs, for some reason the managers are able to still make you feel bad about asking for sick days or just mental health days to help reset from the toxic work environment, which results in people taking month-long vacation once a year.
-Terrible structure. You feel bad about taking vacation because teams are poorly structured with people leaving all the time. Often time you'll have to work 2-3 persons' work.
-High turnover. It's pretty obvious that everything mentioned above resulted in the high turnover rate. No one is stupid enough to get that kind of treatment at work!!

Cons

Where do I begin? Mismanaged, unethical, dishonest , over-billing clients for shoddy work. So-called "analysts" could barely communicate coherently, leading to confusion and redundant work. If I were a client, I would think twice about retaining the service of this company. For whatever reasons, Acumen tends to attract low-quality and technically deficient people, who are encouraged to bill, bill, bill - even for work that is clearly non-billable. An ethically challenged company indeed!

Cons

Below market pay.
Different teams have totally different styles.
Some teams have no such thing as work life balance. Their turn over rate is incredibly high, since their hourly salary is incredibly low.

Cons

Pay can be better compared to other companies in SF

Cons

– Low pay and minimal benefits
– SAS isn't used almost anywhere else
– Low retention (Also a pro! Employees move on to better, higher-paying jobs after 2 years on average)
– Not a social workplace at all. It feels like being in an elevator with strangers, except for 40 hours/week. It's downright awkward.
– Since seniority is prized and retention low, management is a motley crew of whoever sticks around. Two big groups: good programmers who make bad managers, and MaCurdys (the CEO hired ~4 family members for top leadership roles).

Cons

Not a great place to work.

Cons

- lower pay compared to other places in the Bay Area as well as less perks
- experience really depends upon the team you are placed under

Cons

-Antisocial work environment at best, hostile at worst. No one is friendly.

-Lack of transferrable skills for employees.

-Low pay and benefits.

-Highly variable work schedule. If your team happens to be well-managed, you have a good work-life balance. If not, you're stuck with a horrible one.

-Poor management. Like, really poor management, as in I didn't know if I would be working until 5 or 11 pm until late that afternoon.

-Far from city areas, meaning virtually everyone has to commute.

-Limited projects that depend almost fully on CMS.

I have to be honest, I wouldn't recommend working here to anyone. There's awesome projects to be worked on; pub policy/econ/polisci grads have a great chance to increase tech skills, while policy-oriented tech workers have a great chance to enter policy. The problem is the workplace. It's highly inconvenient to get to, rabidly antisocial, lacks benefits or adequate salary, and is unpleasant to work at. The only person to whom i would wholeheartedly recommend this job would be a double public health/computer science major who hasn't learned SAS. If you aren't that ideal person, I would seriously look elsewhere. SAS is taught but is not that helpful in the broader work environment. Unless you get hired as upper management, you don't get a good sense of healthcare policy. And honestly, the work environment is really bad. I had never experienced such a negative and isolating experience until working here.