Time to looking for something new - Anonymous employee System1 Group Employee Review

1.0
Mar 14, 2016
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The emotional take on market research is interesting. They give you a laptop, a phone, a lot of vacation, free snacks, and a couple of mandatory team nights out a month. A fair amount of independence - good place for self-starters. If you don't suck at your job, you'll get a title and pay increase every 18-24 months. And with such high turnover, it's fairly easy to rise quickly. They do a good job of dangling carrots to keep junior staff keen. Ability to work from home occasionally.

Cons

Very high turnover, so teams are always changing and struggling to keep up. With no actual training process in place, it takes months to get new people up to speed, especially since things are constantly changing in how we do things. The laptop and phone they give you mean you're always working, even when you're not. They never hire enough people to do all the work, so most of us work crazy hours, including nights and weekends. Great place to work if you love corporate burnout though. Lots of senior executives hanging around not helping. Lots of vacation days, but it's always too busy to use them. Management is basically a good old boys network - a lot of overweight white guys. Very little diversity in management or in the workforce. US management especially can be very petty, hypocritical, passive aggressive, and negative. It has created a really negative culture over the past year or so. Their claims of being innovative get old after a while, especially since our survey software is barely functional and everything we do is very traditional. We just use the words "emotion" and "behavioral economics" a lot in our reports. Promotions are pretty routine. If you don't suck, you'll get one every 18-24 months, but the job never changes. It's just a different title and a little more money. Even when you're in a senior position, most of the work you do is still intern level. It's more of a research factory than an agency. Not a good place for someone trying to learn how to do market research. Pay is lower than the industry average, but they try to make up for it in the extra vacation days you can never take.

Explore other reviews about System1 Group

5.0
May 21, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A product and approach that clients truly love

Cons

Hard to pinpoint as the flexibility the job offers me is exactly what my lifestyle requires

4.0
Jun 26, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Over the past couple of years, there's been a strong focus on growth in the US which has resulted in consistent builds in momentum. This has meant there's more opportunity for individuals and the team as a whole. The New York location feels like an important hub for System1 again, with most new roles being built from there, while still maintaining the ability for remote work. The NY office has a lot of energy, it's a place that people want to work from, and as such the culture is bouncing back. Updated onboarding and training processes are well structured and thought out - an absolute must for a growing region.

Cons

My personal opinion is that expectations and realities of some roles are mis-aligned. The key to success at S1 is to learn as much as possible and feel comfortable applying research knowledge with clients at any stage of the sales funnel, otherwise it's easy to fall behind.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All