Sovrn Reviews

2.6

29% would recommend to a friend

(135 total reviews)
avatar

Walter Knapp

29% approve of CEO

25% positive business outlook

Sovrn has an employee rating of 2.6 out of 5 stars, based on 135 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have an average working experience there. The Sovrn employee rating is 30% below average for employers within the Media and communication industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

135 reviews
2.0
30 Jan 2018
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

As other reviews have mentioned - you get unlimited PTO (if your manager does not guilt trip you every time you take a day), some catered lunches, snack wall, yoga once a week, barista every day, etc. Not sure if all perks will stay in place. The company desperately needs to save and bring in revenue. Cool office (although practically empty at this point) Young team

Cons

HR dept. writes positive reviews after negative ones are posted, then asks everyone to mark as "helpful" to keep the review at the top when Glassdoor automatically sorts reviews in Popular order. - 2 massive layoffs within 6 months time tells you the company is in bad shape - one of the big issues brought up in employee NPS surveys of Sovrn in 2017 was the uncertainty of the company's future. The CEO basically addressed this in saying every company that is comparable to Sovrn is suffering too. - The small companies in the industry simply cannot survive with issues like ad blocking, net neutrality, and giants like Google & Amazon running the show - Not the time to get into this industry - Communication between departments is horrible and has been a concern for years, but has not been appropriately addressed - CEO looks down upon salespeople. Just laid off the entire sales team to focus on marketing, but the brand identity of Sovrn is suffering and causing them to lose publishers (clients) so this may not be a good move. - You cannot find a positive review of Sovrn (from the client perspective) written in the last year - It seems they care more about spending their money on the perks offered rather than keeping their revenue-driving employees. I would be nervous with all the restructuring after the most recent layoff in 2018 - No room for career growth here. They simply don't have positions to move up into, only lateral moves - Base salaries are low and the commission opportunity discussed in interviews isn't accurate or comparable to similar positions in the area

2.0
11 Jan 2018

Don't count your eggs before they hatch

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Nice people, nice perks, flexible PTO is great. You get to dig your fingers into an incredibly complex industry and try to make sense of it which can be equally fun and frustrating.

Cons

They had one big layoff in 2017 and I was hired right afterward to help rebuild the ranks. A few months after joining I'm laid off as well. Huge waste of my time. The industry is bottoming out and there will be lots of consolidation/acquisitions happening so it's definitely not a space to go into if you want long-term career prospects. Programmatic advertising is quickly becoming commoditized with less and less need for people to run the show.

2.0
27 Dec 2017

Time for a new supreme leader

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

They have a beautiful office in a pretty convenient location. Ad tech is a fun industry and this can be a decent place to start your journey. Work-life balance is amazing.

Cons

Sovrn’s ad exchange is pretty big - but nothing compares to the size of the CEO’s ego. Don't expect to be at any company meeting without him offending half the people there, retelling awful jokes, or dropping the f-word at least 30 times. The whole idea of ‘you’re here for more than just a paycheck’, being an excuse to underpay in the Boulder Area is a joke - we’re not saving lives, we’re serving annoying ads. Sovrn’s cheapness only reflects on the product - they have not launched anything without a rash of bugs in years. They tend to promote those with absolutely no merit, or any rationality behind it. No cohesion amongst departments - there is not a common goal in mind, but rather competing interests. In the end, nothing gets solved and the levels of animosity grow.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 135 Reviews

Glassdoor has 144 Sovrn reviews submitted anonymously by Sovrn employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Sovrn is right for you.