Cares More About Looking Good Than Doing Good Work - Consultant Daemon Employee Review

2.0
Nov 5, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Certification Bounties: Daemon offers and encourages staff to get certifications to elevate the business and pays out a monetary bounty based on the level of the certification. If you are on the bench this is truly amazing, but fully allocated staff will struggle to find the time between project work and client meetings not to mention Daemon activities such as admin, meetings or people managing. - Remote (Work From Home): Remote work is great, it's that simple. Daemon does offer an office if you wish to go there. Although currently they are aggressively pushing Hybrid approach and there has lately been a frequent amount of events where they've pushed mandatory in person attendance. - Plenty of events: Daemon offers a lot of events, the biggest ones being Daemon Days where everyone gets together and shows off the big things that has happened in the company. There's also frequent presentations by the various departments. - Friendly: Everyone at Daemon is extremely friendly. - Branching Out Tech: Daemon used to focus almost purely on AWS services and very little else, however now Daemon is heavily focusing on adding Azure to our repertoire and there is a big certification incentives. It's good to see them branching out.

Cons

- Hard Work Goes Unrewarded: Daemon does not reward good hard work, it instead rewards the staff who do presentations, volunteer for events and are otherwise more visible to the rest of the company. This sets a horrible precedent as staff who are focused more on client work (due to personal work ethic or project responsibilities) get overlooked. The pay and promotion panel don't even consult with project members or the client before making their decisions. This is a common problem with Consultancies and not unique to Daemon, as it can be difficult for Senior Management to truly know what is going on in the multiple projects, but it seems to be extremely bad at Daemon as they don't even ask the Project Leads for feedback. - Broken Communication Chain: Many times I've seen problems, issues and concerns within Daemon or with certain staff try to be escalated to the right people but it goes no further. There is a sense of Daemon protecting people and trying to sweep the issues under the rug (or maybe wait and hope it resolves itself) rather than taking action and working to solve the issue(s). - Vague, Hidden and Frequently Changing: Many things at Daemon are hidden and vague, They keep promising to release the pay bands for example but then make excuses as to why they can't yet. When I joined Daemon there was a clear document to fill out to get Promoted to Senior and Principal Consultant, but that has frequently changed since then. Most notoriously they changed the entire format a week before the submission deadline for pay and promotion. - Unreliable Hiring: Daemon's interview process is rather good, up until you get to the Tech Interview which is laughably easy. One of the tech interview documents is a Python project lazily copied directly from an extremely easy to find blog post where the solution can be copied from. There are quite a few staff who talked big during their tech interview and went unchallenged and got placed in elevated positions and are actually unable to do the work required of them, this is causing issues on the projects they get assigned to and causes animosity between team members as the output levels between staff can clearly be seen amongst project members. - Bleeding Talent: Many talented individuals have left Daemon. This is very worrying.

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Daemon Response
2y
Thank you for leaving your comments. We're sorry you’re having a mixed experience at Daemon. We take our responsibility towards Daemonites very seriously and want to ensure everyone has a great experience at Daemon with the opportunity to contribute to our Daemon ways and grow their careers. Thank you so much for highlighting what you think we are doing well. This is great to hear. With regard to those things you feel we are not doing so well, we would love the opportunity to speak to you about these to get your ideas. We would encourage you to speak to your people manager or engagement lead or, indeed, anyone else in the business you would feel comfortable talking to so we can work with you on these. As a company, we are in a phase of growth and that brings change. This change can often feel uncomfortable, but what is often the case is that if we let things move forward, then, invariably, they become better in the long run. Again, as we grow, we find ourselves constantly looking at how we attract the best people into Daemon with the best experience all the way from interviewing to onboarding to living the Daemon life. We know we have done some good things in this area in the past but recognise that they need continual review to keep them relevant and up to date. We are, in fact, already working on the next version of our tech interview, and it would be great to get you involved with that. Daemon is a remote by default business. We take this flexibility very seriously to allow people to balance work-life commitments. We have, though, always encouraged Daemonites to socialise and get together for work when they can, as we recognise the critical role this plays in building meaningful relationships. Finally, we would like to reiterate that your feedback, opinions and thoughts are really useful. As a people-first business, we are committed to ensuring we are creating the best possible environment for our People to ensure colleagues can thrive and enjoy what they do for themselves and our clients. In addition to your people manager and engagement lead, please also feel free to speak to anyone in the management team. They would really welcome the opportunity to discuss this with you in more detail. So please do talk and get involved in those changes.

Explore other reviews about Daemon

1.0
Oct 9, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Remote first Certification Bounty Sometimes supportive

Cons

I’ve been at Daemon for over seven years, and in the past three or so, I’ve noticed a clear shift in culture. What was once a “people first” environment has gradually become entirely focused on being billable. While I understand that billability is important for the business, it should not be the only thing that matters. In the past, Daemon struck that balance well but since the change in leadership, that has unfortunately changed. There’s been a pattern of silent retrenchments, creating an atmosphere of fear and uncertainty. The people I manage who are currently on the bench are genuinely scared they might be next. Yet weirdly, they are still hiring. I’ve seen good friends and colleagues let go every year over the past three years, with no visible remorse or transparency. It feels like no one is safe, regardless of their contribution or tenure. Suffice to say, I’ll be leaving soon but it’s incredibly disappointing to see what Daemon has become and how employees are being treated. I’m sure the founders are making decisions they believe are best for the business, but what a shame to watch the culture unravel like this.

5
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Daemon Response
7mo
Thank you for taking the time to share your feedback. We are genuinely saddened to read your review and would appreciate the opportunity to discuss your comments with you directly. There are a couple of ways to get in touch anonymously, enabling you to provide direct feedback without compromising your identity. Both our monthly wellbeing and quarterly eNPS surveys include free-form boxes for you to share detailed feedback anonymously. The tailored questions are there to make sure that we are accurately asking about eNPS, and they need to be asked repeatedly to ensure we can benchmark and measure trends. If you are comfortable having an open conversation, please use your regular catch-ups with your people manager to discuss your thoughts, contribute to the regular town halls and have the discussion with your peers. Also, feel free to reach out to anyone on the leadership team, or to Steve and/or Cal directly, as they always operate an open-door policy. We are more than willing to spend time discussing all the points you have raised, so please do get in touch. Thank you.
2.0
Oct 4, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Remote-first. Good for early career starters. Some interesting clients and engagements, but mileage varies.

Cons

Resourcing agency, body shop. Few greenfield or pure consulting projects. Mostly break-fix, supplementing of teams. Resource placement, promotion, reward, retention, and people management processes are questionable. Inexperienced leadership and no technical representation on exec team.

3
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Daemon Response
7mo
Thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts. We greatly value your feedback and would love the opportunity to discuss the points you have raised directly. Please do either chat with your people manager or with anyone else in the leadership team. We are really keen to get your views and spend some time chatting through all the points you have raised. Thank you.
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