A strong company but a mixed bag for employee quality of life
Pros
- A high degree of ownership and autonomy is given to employees - Most of the people really are nice and smart, and good to work with - Good transparency in many aspects of the company, particularly financials - Salaries are competitive. Total comp may be below average in tech still because Datavant is a private company, so there's uncertainty on when and if the value of stock grants can be realized. - Strong product market fit - Committed to a fully remote team
Cons
- There was recently a massive benefits cut in the quality of health plans offered to employees. This has sparked significant outrage, especially among those with families who are most adversely affected by this change. - Practices a hire and fire strategy rather than trying to grow team members. Very little explicit investment in individuals happens despite the cultural mantra around it. Professional growth is still possible with the autonomy and responsibility vested in individuals, but it requires self-direction. - They've fostered a workaholic culture where people are pushed to work excessive hours. - Very meeting heavy culture, meaning that getting actual work done is often pushed to non-work hours. - The Product Org has been consistently understaffed due to extremely high attrition - both from individuals being fired and leaving due to the unreasonable workload expectations. - Low empathy from leadership. One mid-level engineering manager often makes snide remarks about candidates during interview debriefs or about former employees. Employees who are fired are often given short notice or little explanation as to why. Non-salaried employees are treated terribly. - Employee comp is *explicitly* not tied to performance reviews, so it's very unclear how this gets decided. - Current CEO is Pete McCabe (Glassdoor isn't updated as of this review). There is a common sentiment on the ground that he comes across as clueless and people question his ability to lead the organization based on Ciox's past issues. - The Head of People is the wife of Datavant's former CEO and has remained in place despite repeated issues and complaints over the years. She's actively stifled employee led initiatives to improve the culture, such as blocking any actionable changes to improve DEI at the company.
