Lost its soul after the Oracle acquisition - Anonymous employee AddThis Employee Review

2.0
9 Jan 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The culture was fun and there were a lot of really smart people working there (most have left already after the Oracle acquisition). There was free daily catered lunch, projects were interesting if you were on the right teams, and pay was decent, but below what you could earn at FAANG.

Cons

After the acquisition, things went downhill fast. Lots of brain-drain with some of the best, most driven employees seeking other opportunities at smaller, fast growing startups. We lost our free daily catered lunches after a while, which was disappointing but expected since it would be unfair for AddThis to get free lunch while other teams in the same office building did not. Oracle culture is pretty typical big-company - things move slow, tons of bureaucracy, and lots of legal red tape, though AddThis was shielded from some of that. The teams skewed towards the younger side and there was definitely a "bro" feeling with some teams which could be a turnoff to some. Overall, I had a good experience at AddThis, but that definitely turned for the worse once we became part of the ODC.

Explore other reviews about AddThis

5.0
17 May 2019
Anonymous freelancer
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Flexible, nice people, good product

Cons

Pay everything else is immaterial

5.0
9 Apr 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Interesting technical challenges with a ton of opportunities to really pull things apart to see how they work and design new solutions. Wide variety of projects that still add value. Feel like doing some micro optimizations? No problem; you can do so without feeling like you are spending your time sub optimally. Another day you might want to hack on some web ui - still helpful. Or run an experiment with billions of records, or dive deep into the TCP stack. If you've ever been interested in "big data" or using Hadoop, you will get your fill. You can use Hadoop if you want, but they have their own platform which they actively develop and works more efficiently if less smoothly. Working here will teach you so much about data processing and analysis that you will not only look down on people who use Hadoop/MapReduce, but on the very developers who made them. Engineering management is competent and reasonable. Work hours are extremely flexible. Coworkers are all pleasant. Free lunch, snacks, drinks etc.

Cons

Most of the company won't understand what you do. Neither will most of the internet. The flip side of having so many things to work on is that the age old "20% of the work for 80% of the benefit" frequently compels you to let ever more perfectly reasonable improvements/ projects sit in your back log. Other parts of the company are sometimes a little more volatile

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All