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      DigitalOcean

      Engaged employer

      DigitalOcean Reviews

      3.4

      58% would recommend to a friend

      (450 total reviews)
      avatar

      Paddy Srinivasan

      56% approve of CEO

      71% positive business outlook

      Ratings by category

      3.8

      Diversity and inclusion

      3.7

      Work/Life balance

      3.6

      Compensation and benefits

      3.4

      Culture and values

      3.4

      Career opportunities

      3.0

      Senior management

      DigitalOcean has an employee rating of 3.4 out of 5 stars, based on 450 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The DigitalOcean employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Information Technology industry (3.9 stars).

      Reviews by job title

      450 reviews
      1.0
      5 Jan 2016

      Terrible leadership, no opportunities, and discouraging

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      One thing DigitalOcean has is really good perks - you can work remote pretty much whenever, fully pay for MTA card, lunch everyday, team outings, gym reimbursement, good insurance, etc. But perks aren't everything - they can't create a culture (with terrible leadership) and it's really easy to tell when the business isn't doing so well when they start cutting back. Honestly, the "working" employees are the best thing about the business.

      Cons

      The CEO of the company is not a leader, is unapproachable and is slowly driving the company into the ground. He is disrespectful to almost everyone and his ideas are always correct. They are pushing for diversity, but it doesn't seem like any female leaders are liked. I would be surprised if the board didn't push him out by the end of the year. On top of it, another member of the exec team is a brother (who left and came back - never a good sign) and several Directors/Managers throughout the organization are related to one another - conflict of interest? Turnover has been terrible - reading in a newsletter that 2-3 people left every few weeks is absolutely insane. They preach an amazing growth opportunity, but continue to hire outside of the organization because they have no career paths laid out or development plans in place. They ARE well funded, but don't mistake this for having great leaders. The company has been slow to adapt to the enterprise sales trend of technology companies for revenue growth and is now scrambling to fix it since they aren't hitting projected revenue. They have relied on word of mouth and their "community" for business and are just now realizing they need a sales team...5 years after inception. They underpay a lot of teams outside of engineering (they are the most important) and then do "off cycle comp reviews" just to say they are "working to fix" pay inequities. A lot of managers are inexperienced, which isn't the bad part - but it's that they don't have the leadership (or qualified leadership) to train these young professionals to succeed. They have a ton of values, but in reality, it seems like the executive team is exempt from all of them. I won't continue to ramble on, but you get the idea. It appears great on the outside, but inside it's is a mess, their growth is slowing, and you need to be prepared to be frustrated and stressed everyday with no explanation and a "this is the way I want it" attitude from the top.

      1.0
      5 Apr 2017

      Beware the sinking ship

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Free food and good benefits

      Cons

      Where to start. You'll hear DigitalOcean touting a people first culture. The truth is that saying or writing out culture over and over doesn't make it true. DigitalOcean has had more turnover in the top of the organization due to the remaining two founders who are brilliant but ineffective at organizational planning and leadership. They have clear ideas on what they would like to get done but fail to understand how to manage people in order for those ideas to become reality. If you find yourself in disagreement with them you had better hope that you are related to the founders or your career at DigitalOcean will be short lived. Search LinkedIn for prior DigitalOcean employees and you'll find your search is littered with employees in upper level management and C suite roles. Here is a non-comprehensive list of positions that have left, been demoted or were exited from the organization during the last 2 years: CMO, CFO, VP of Security, 2 directors of marketing, director of networking, director of FP&A, controller, creative director, manager of talent development, multiple product managers, brand design manager. The entire finance team exited the organization during 2016 from analysts to CFO. I judge companies not on what they say but what they do. Unfortunately for DigitalOcean the actions do not bode well for the company.

      avatar
      DigitalOcean Response
      9y
      Not going to lie, that one stung a little bit. But as always, we appreciate the feedback. It's fair to say that some of the facts you've laid out are accurate, but it's also really important to keep in mind the context. Like most highly successful, rapidly scaling startups, DigitalOcean is a radically different place than it was two years or even six months ago. What that sometimes means is that the skills, experience and approach that we need from leadership may be different at different points in the organization's lifecycle. While we are a developmentally focused organization and generally default to finding opportunities for people to grow with the company wherever we can, often people still may choose to self-select out when the role, or the evolving culture, no longer feels like a match with their career interests. That's normal, and from my perspective, a good thing. If we can help someone grow and develop in a way that sets them up for an opportunity at another company that we can't provide them here, that's an amazing thing that we should celebrate. That means we did our job as a deliberately developmental organization. Organizations change, and at the pace DO is growing sometimes people change with them. We are still absolutely a "People First" organization -- I wouldn't be here if we weren't -- and we are committed to creating a company that employees love, and where people get to do some of the most interesting, challenging and meaningful work of their careers. I hope that's helpful. While I appreciate the nautical metaphor, I would definitely take issue with the idea that we are a "sinking ship". In the past year alone our company has grown in size by over a third, and we expect to add close to another 20% by year end. Voluntary turnover is approaching single digits. Our revenue continues to climb significantly, and we've added some incredibly talented new senior leaders in the past few months. We are in extremely good health and a very cool place to work - I promise.
      2.0
      19 Dec 2020

      Dishonest/disconnected leadership, "values" are a myth

      Anonymous employee
      Recommend
      CEO approval
      Business outlook

      Pros

      Before the current leadership DigitalOcean was an amazing place to work. Pre-2020, the company lived up to its values, had an amazing culture, provided real opportunities for dedicated employees, and was a place where leadership (both direct managers and senior leadership) cared about the people. There are great benefits for remote employees. Monthly snack/coffee deliveries, monthly wellness stipends, etc. They introduced extra paid days off in response to COVID. They offered an office stipend when the entire company became remote because of COVID. There are amazingly talented people at DigitalOcean. Great compensation, though annual raises have been significantly less beneath new leadership (3% max). Shark Week was an amazing benefit/event, but I doubt that will ever happen again once travel is safe because of the fixation on trimming costs.

      Cons

      - Under the latest leadership, veteran employees do not feel safe. - Recognition is only given to a handful of "teacher's pets." - Several layoffs in 2020 made room for senior leadership's colleagues from prior companies. Leadership posted job listings for these roles, which were quickly filled by old teammates from their last company. Some of these replacements have no idea what they are doing and are not qualified to be leaders, which is reflected in the work being done and the number of veterans looking for new work. - Internal surveys show that employees don't trust senior leadership, but leadership does nothing to course correct and regain trust. Their behaviors do the opposite. - The values are not true anymore. The only value that leadership lives by is to become "cash flow positive," even if that means letting go of the "love" culture they claim is at the core of "everything they do." The only thing at the core of all leadership does is profit. - The CEO has reprimanded those who ask difficult but fair questions during "AMAs." They always dodge the tough questions. - Note that almost all positive reviews from 2020 were written by people who've been with the company less than a year.

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      ReviewsDigitalOcean reviews

      Glassdoor has 479 DigitalOcean reviews submitted anonymously by DigitalOcean employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if DigitalOcean is right for you.