Burn out is the obvious con of Datastax. This company is led by egotistical nepotism that alters directions on a whim. They expect you to adapt to their way of thinking (which has a very limited track record of success) or you're out. If you're looking for some stability...well, this won't be the place for it. Everyone has heard of the tech sector layoffs but news about Datastax layoffs are kept quiet. They achieve this by laying people off in small groups every month or so. The CEO then takes control of the teams and tells everyone that "this is the team"...and then lays more people off and follows up with "this is the team". Another big challenge is the fact that the CEO puts in his friends as leaders in the company even though they have no experience in the fields they are leading. These friends thing bring in people with less experience to assist them. Now that we've had significant C-level departures, these people are now acting C-Levels for these functions. These individuals make costly decisions and never feel with the repercussions. They don't understand the long term impacts of their decisions and when you try to bring it up you could be reprimanded as they are known for their inability to handle people questioning them. Those that do question them will feel the repercussions. This can either be through escalations to your manager or being let go for "performance related" reasons. For those joining due to the benefits package. They do offer a strong healthcare package but all of the other benefits that make start-ups unique continue to be stripped away. The logic is because "COVID is over and you don't need it anymore". For example, they used to give a week off in August and a month or so before the break they announced that it was cancelled and then reverted that decision and then reverted back to cancel it. Why? The CEO claims he doesn't want to fall behind in the AI game. Another thing to note is that the company does not do job titles, so those hoping to grow their careers with milestones that show up on a resume (i.e job title promotions) will not be able to achieve that here. Most job titles you see on LinkedIn for Datastax employees are made up. For those reading other reviews, just know that the team reaches out constantly to people in the org to post 5 star reviews. They usually come back to back within a few days of each other. Disregard these as they are from the perspective of those that were hand selected by HR and not genuine reviews.
