Spiceworks Ziff Davis Employee Reviews about "spiceworks"

Pros

In Spiceworks they put a lot of effort in maintaining their 'human' fun culture. Evem as they are growing and leaving behind the startup scene, they put a lot of efforts in keep the whole company connected and a fun place. Here you are a name, not a number. In the first month I worked here, I was already given real responsibility, talked with clients, had in-person training with everyone in the HQ, talked several times with the CEO. I felt my opinions were listened and valued. Perhaps what I do love the most is that they truly want to help you in your career. If you want to get involved in new projects, vary your workload, switch to a different department. They are always open for discussion. And you get spoiled with freebies and food :)

Cons

I am working from the London office, so the team is small. We have to adjust to small daily issues: lack of meeting rooms, no IT guys, relying on the HQ for setting up a software or hardware.

Pros

At Spiceworks, you get a chance to work with people who love their jobs and look out for each other. Everyone is respectful and sensible. The amount of transparency from management is on the high end of the scale.

Cons

Before getting hired, don't reveal what you were making in your last job, because you won't get an offer for a higher amount.

Pros

Spiceworks is a great place to get your first job out of college: there is beer; you become best friends with your co-workers; you feel part of something. After about 6 months, the orange kool-aid WILL wear off and you will realize that you are are just a disposable worker doing mindless work. You'll just keep reminding yourself, "oh but I went through the infamous interview process -- so I'm pretty cool, right? This will be fun again one day"

Cons

Pay is lower than industry for most positions. Leadership doesn't know what they are doing in the sales and media operations departments. Lots of new middle manangemnet. The 'OMG THIS IS THE BEST COMPANY EVERY AND WE ARE ALL SO AWESOME' culture has shifted since Jay Hallberg took over -- marketing and parts of engineering teams seem to be the only ones still drinking the kool-aid. The product isn't very good and the company inflates every usage stat. There was talk 2 years ago about IPO -- no longer.... Notice how all of the cool tech companies in Austin are downtown? Well...Spiceworks is off the parking lot that is Loop 360. Wanna meet your friends for happy hour off Rainey? Get ready for a 45 minute drive. No bus options, good luck riding your bike unless you want to get hit. Still no 401k match. Spiceworks is no longer a 'start-up' -- a 401K match is a basic benefit for most other companies at Spiceworks' level.

Pros

Spiceworks moved into a new building about two years ago and it's really nice - very modern and kept clean. There's free snacks, coffee, sparkling water, soda...the snacks even change out from time to time. People there are (generally) friendly and I've really enjoyed working with most of my co-workers. There's a lot of ownership given to you if you show that you're willing and able to take on more. No micromanagement in the team I worked on.

Cons

I think some people who work at this company let their high-ranking position get to their heads. A lot of the more difficult interactions I've had with people were with the senior-level employees. To Spiceworks' credit, they have let go some employees who were repeatedly reported for their behavior.

Pros

Of course, like every other review, I have to mention the people I work with. I can't tell you how often I've come into work with a bad morning and my team and co-workers are there to make my life just a little bit easier. Additionally, there are plenty of good snacks and coffee, I can't say I've ever been hungry working for Spiceworks. We also have great company meetings on Friday afternoons - seeing other projects around the company really makes me value all of the hard work that my co-workers do to make Spiceworks the best it can be. Not only that, but it encourages you to go home and enjoy your weekend. I've always had a great work-life balance working here. We also just got an updated vacation policy that really does allow for us to take time off and enjoy time with family and friends.

Cons

There are definitely some cons that I need to get into here, unfortunately. It may be because I've worked here for a while, but the rose-tinted glasses I previously wore are coming off. I don't think it has to do with the length of time I've been here, but rather with the culture itself. We've gone through structural changes (not including layoffs) and I've seen people change in the process. There's also a distinct lack of growth that I've experienced. I grew pretty quickly into the role that I'm currently in, but it plateaued. I think the biggest thing that I have concern with is the lack of direction and structure that I personally feel. Among teams, there could be 20 different spreadsheets floating around at any given moment, and half of us have no idea how to access them. We talk about sharing access during meetings, but no one really follows through. I'm glad that we're offering transparency, but I honestly don't see the value in a multitude of Google Docs. We keep our OKRs in Google Docs and they were shared upon development, but I feel like we don't actually get updates on our progress, just random presentations about projects in our Friday meetings. (So Friday meetings can fall under both pros and cons.) Not only that, but I feel like there's a lot of pressure here. We talk about an open door policy and they encourage you to ask questions, but I would completely agree with other reviewers that a big part of working at Spiceworks really is drinking the orange Koolaid.

Pros

The people. You will work with some awesome people who will become your friends. Spiceworks hires some of the smartest and nicest people I've met. Everyone looks out for one another and it's truly a team-first environment.

Cons

Even though you work WITH great people, you'll likely end up working FOR some bad managers. There's a lot of managers that should stick to individual contributor roles. They simply don't have the training to properly manage and mentor a team. Executive management is a joke ever since Scott left. In just over a year, the culture has shifted dramatically. It used to be truly a great place to work, but management has gone increasingly less transparent lately. There is too much emphasis on revenue first, quality product last. They scaled up the sales team without making sure the product was good, both IT and Marketing.

Pros

The company has grown over the years, but the founders still want to hear from everyone. The company cares about the culture and it's employees. My career has progressed and Spiceworks typically promotes from within. In dev there are initiatives to fix what's broken & a week long competition 'SpiceWars' where people get to build any product that helps the company. Folks really try to help each other out & share expertise. Dev organizes tech talks: Lunch & Learn, back-end & front-end dev meetings. Typically at least 2 a week. Recently we started a program where people can try out another team for a few weeks to again additional skills & get to work with new people. My manager really tries to help me out, and will answer any question I throw at him honestly. Super coworkers. Everyone is willing to lend a hand, answer questions & mentor employees. Spiceworks is full of intelligent people.

Cons

Growing a company is hard - but Spiceworks really tries to get everyone on board and moving forward.

Pros

As we all know, starting up a new job is never easy. The ramp up period takes weeks even months. Spiceworks has really put in the effort to make the new hire transitioning as simple as possible. They provide in depth training (depending on group/division) as well as detailed schedules and sufficient new hire collateral. To put this in perspective, In the past 5 years I worked at literally a hand full of companies (large and small, startup and established), none of which put in even half the effort that Spiceworks is doing. What does that tell you? Well, it tells you that they are willing to invest heavily in your success. I don't know about you but I'm not a big fan of working at companies that use and abuse your talent.

Cons

Nothing just yet. I'm sure I'll come up with small "cons" as time progresses but as long as we keep things as is (from upper management to the foot soldiers) I'll be content and continue to bust my ass for a good cause.

Pros

I went into the internship not knowing anything about web development but Spiceworks takes the time to teach you and gives you projects to improve your skills.

Cons

Only negative thing I have to say is the location. Austin is great, but it's a 20 minute commute by car at minimum from West Campus where most of the subleases are. Overall it's not a big issue.

Pros

Transparency They value their employees Your ideas and opinions are actually taken in to account and are heard Pretty flexible if you need to work from home due to sickness or personal reasons Free coffee, Tacos on Monday's and Bagels on Fridays. Free snack Covered parking Fun company events

Cons

The Traffic is HORRIBLE! Takes me an hour to get to work and an hour home. I know this isn't Spiceworks fault but I wish they had Work from Home a couple times a week. That would help out so much. They do not have a 401k :( They do not have good maternity/paternity benefits at all. You get 6 weeks paid and then either have to come back or you are not paid the 2nd 6 weeks if you want to stay home with your newborn. The pay is average... not bad but not awesome!