Transparency and impact - Senior Individual Contributor DuckDuckGo Employee Review

5.0
6 May 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

I have been with the company for over 3 years. Having worked for several large corporations and startups before, I've never seen an organization with so much transparency and empowerment. Everything is documented in Asana (where most discussions happen asynchronously) and other than personally sensitive stuff, it's all fully transparent and available to all team members. Anyone, no matter what role they hold, can propose new projects/initiatives and there's no need to cut through cumbersome processes or layers of middle management (there's none!) to do that - you get your idea immediately exposed to top leadership and have a discussion with them explaining why we should do it now and what's the opportunity cost. It doesn't mean it's easy to make compelling proposals, but if you back it up with solid research or base it on rigorous logical reasoning, you have a big chance of getting it approved. And lastly, there's not that many opportunities to work on something so meaningful and having an objectively impact on so many people. I mean we need the Internet to be in service to people and not a tool for big tech to track and manipulate them! P.S. One more really cool thing is that everyone at the same level of seniority gets paid the same compensation, no matter where the they are in the world.

Cons

Depends on what you're looking for, but potential cons are mostly around the current stage of growth, which is still very startupy, meaning some internal processes being pretty basic and a need to put on different hats as needed. You usually don't get told to do A, B & C but rather "hey, this is the problem we're facing, could you go and figure out how to solve it".

Explore other reviews about DuckDuckGo

5.0
25 Jun 2025
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture and team members. Fully remote and supportive company with flexibility and work life balance. Given the trust and ability to work independently and contribute to projects.

Cons

None, i’ve been here 3+ years and have no complaints.

2
3.0
29 Aug 2024
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great culture across the team members. Smart people, fun to work with, balanced and supportive. Remote working environment is really flexible, and issues you work on are very interesting.

Cons

Company has grown, and in material ways it does not work as described in "How we work at DuckDuckGo." There is a hierarchy in decision making, there are people who function as managers, and many decisions are made by a few people, often without the participation of people who are responsible for the work. There are systemic issues with compensation and how promotions (which is the only avenue for career growth/professional level increases) are made, so for most people, where they enter is where they will be forever, or for a very, very long time. Expertise and experience outside of product work is not deemed of much value. Leadership refuses to acknowledge change is needed in several areas due to belief that doing things differently would "destroy the culture." The result is certain topics are off limits for questioning assumptions, even when problems are evident, and overall there is very rigid thinking which leads to very little or very slow change for a company that needs to be innovative.

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