MicroStrategy Reviews

Cons

Company is still working through the right mix of field empowerment and top down direction and strategy--- both are needed and leadership sometimes can lurch a bit between them or be impatient with the time and effort required to move from idea to execution to institutionalized business practice. Also work to do on moving from a pure technology to business solution focus --- and finding the right mix of both.

Cons

1. Annoying training for product using, even for developer!

Cons

Lack of ability to work from home occasionally.

Cons

Upper management -- avoid this place. Executives manage via micromanagement and pitting departments against each other purposefully, misaligning and creating competing goals for each dept. Systems and data are more important than the people doing the work. Execs micromanage and demonstrate daily lack of trust for the smart people they hire. They scrutinize data to prove you wrong or to show you don't know how to do your job.

Cons

- lower entry level pay -- you gotta WORK for it if you want a raise/promotion so if you're a person who likes to coast this won't work for you. i knew when i accepted that it wasn't as high of a salary i wanted but it just felt like such a good fit so i stuck with it and it pays off if you work hard
- disconnect in communication from CXO level to the rest of the company, especially from technology

Cons

- 401k vesting schedule could use an adjustment, (six years).
- Salary growth/raises do not keep pace with employee skills/market value, leads to employee turnover.

Cons

BE CAUTIOUS about accepting a position here. I accepted the position with the hopes of becoming an account executive, as they tell you that’s the career path usually and “almost everyone gets promoted” DON’T believe that they will tell you whatever you want to hear to accept the job. Your first week they will have you do what they call “training” it’s far from it. You watch videos that can go along with any job about how to conduct yourself at the workplace and different HR videos. You keep waiting to learn more about the product but they just give you vague responses and when it comes time to learn the product they sit you down talk to you for 30 minutes explaining the platform and then send you on your way. No other training other than that and if you ask one of the three managers for help they will either give you a dirty look doll their eyes and help you reluctantly or they will push you off until later and never answer your question hoping you will forget to ask them. So you are left there to figure out pretty much the entire role by yourself with no guidance and hoping a tenured employee will help you fill in the gaps but that’s usually hard because tenure is so low there 95% of BDR’s are there under a year and for a reason. They figure out the deal there and then find a better role. The managers hide in one office smoking their vapes all day long praying you don’t ask them anything. One manager will sit there smoking his vape everywhere he goes even in interviews, the other does nothing but sit in his room staring at his screen all day long and is the most uncomfortable person to be around, hopefully you catch him on a day he has a buzz from smoking pot or else he is just grumpy. There is one manager that does everything he can, Alex I do want to say he is a great manager and really does his best and the other managers should try learning from him as he sits down for sometimes hours helping others. This is far from a business development position, you are just a telemarketer that blasts generic pre made emails and making calls until someone answers their is no strategy involved in the way they approach potential customers and why they don’t see too much success at all with this method. When it comes to paying you out your commission they will do everything they can to not pay you and countless times I saw other employees get commission taken away for no given reason, one employee lost out on almost $1,200 dollars. They get out of that debate by asking subliminally if you like your job there. When I realized the position was no longer something I was interested in my manager tells me “in order to be successful here you have to break the rules”. That was all I had to hear to know I was not in the right place for me. There is no professional development here and in my opinion is a step back no matter where you are in your career unless you are coming from a telemarketing position. I really hope upper management can figure this out and stop the scapegoating going on there.

Cons

401k and health care plan not good

Cons

Employee review/evaluation system: This was the #1 absurdity. As at least one other review mentioned, employees are rated on a scale of 1 (worst) through 5 (best). My boss let me in on the fact that team leaders were limited as to how many 5s (if any) they were allowed to dole out in a given quarter. Obviously, this is designed such that no one can achieve their 100% merit bonus! As someone who is accustomed to being a rockstar at her job, I felt slighted whenever I didn't receive the shiny 5 stars. In my first review, I was demerited as a result of not being exposed to enough of my job responsibilities up to that point in time -- and this was actually acknowledged to be of no fault of mine. In later reviews, my demerits were due to comparison to the team - my peers had already been placed in charge of larger projects prior to my hiring (and were unwilling to share much of the workload), so they received singing accolades, whereas I was left in the dust. My abilities were never factored in.

Onboarding literally did not exist: As a new hire, I was given nothing to do for months. I actually decided to work as a contractor for another company in my spare time after my requisite 8 hours in the office, just so that I wouldn't feel depressed about how under-utilized I was. I would have resigned sooner (along with the other new hire in my group) if I hadn't made a promise to myself to give it a full year.

New ideas unwelcome: When I was finally given tasks, I was kept on a short leash. I tried but was usually shot down when trying to introduce efficiencies and new ideas. I was kept at a distance and often out out of the loop. Too many cooks in the kitchen that were all very set in their ways. How could I be expected to be a shiny 5-star employee with roadblocks everywhere I turned?

Management: Unapproachable. My boss never gained trust in my abilities because she simply chose not to interact with anyone besides her favorite employees (of which I was certainly not), except on a weekly or when absolutely needed basis. I have never worked for or with anyone so unapproachable.

Negative atmosphere: While the rest of the team was mostly friendly, the overall atmosphere was unpleasant and constantly stressed. Even the friendly ones were like an old club that would head out to happy hour and exclude me regularly. I like a fast-paced demanding role, but I could do without the negativity that is clearly rewarded at MSTR.

Inflexibility: While some team members were allowed to work remotely 100% of the time and others dabbled with it frequently, I was actually denied a request to work remotely for 1 day (not even PTO), which resulted in my missing an event that I'd hoped to attend. The reason given was the desire to have a minimum number of folks from the team in the office on that day - a mid-quarter Friday during which I was, as usual, underutilized. Moreover, nothing about the job responsibilities requires presence in office. As for PTO, 15 days at a manager level is pretty weak. One of my teammates was constantly being hassled for the sometimes flexible hours she chose to work (while the work was getting done, and in her role there was no logical reason that she needed to be working within a rigid window). My philosophy simply did not align; I think flexibility should be rewarded where the work is getting done and the focus should be on the work product rather than "hours clocked".

Cons

Leadership MUST engage more with their teams and actively listen to employees; they do great at managing up to CEO, but not down.
Decisions are made in a vacuum with no input from broader employee base; this has created discontent and lack of trust at all levels below executive leadership.
Executive leadership is too focused on competing with one another and being "yes" men to CEO - too much ego at the top
Salary is not competitive
401K vesting schedule should be revisited
Too many meetings that add little to no value