Drata Reviews

3.3

51% would recommend to a friend

(191 total reviews)

Adam Markowitz

55% approve of CEO

51% positive business outlook

Drata has an employee rating of 3.3 out of 5 stars, based on 191 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Drata 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

191 reviews
1.0
15 Jan 2024

Series C was the worst possible thing to happen to Drata

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-Solid base salary -Good benefits (no 401k match, but other perks I do believe make up for this) -Remote work from anywhere -Top notch equipment (MAC computers, best in class software, nice branded equipment) -World class CSM team -Not a lot of bureaucracy or red tape to just get things done -Good introduction to security and compliance, which is a great and promising industry to work in

Cons

I was hesitant to share my experience at Drata out of fear of repercussions, and am grateful to the other people who had similar experiences as I did who inspired me to write this review. It is a blatant fact now that the only reason Drata remains above 3 stars on Glassdoor is because of reviews PRIOR to their series C funding (Dec 2022). It is a mess inside from the C-suite down, but all—and I do mean all—of the blame is put on the individual contributors. My summary: Once Drata raised its Series C, and then hired Adam Aarons as its CRO, it lost all direction and purpose and anything that made it special. Adam brought nothing to the table other than a series of "LFGs!" and "JUST DO IT!" chants to zoom and slack, and encouraged leadership and ICs to sacrifice anything and everything to remain employed here. I quite vividly remember a colleague taking a vacation and being celebrated for making calls at 3 in the morning there. Totally normal and cool! As others have stated, job security is a complete joke here. One mistake or one month below target and you're on a laughable PIP. Tenure, talent, or any other circumstances, are all ignored. Drata isn't willing to invest long-term in its employees. Much like it's go-to-market strategy, Drata is only interested in what (or who) gets it money quickly—never mind long-term consequences! RE: Okta employee favoritism. It's just comical at this point. Simple linkedin search will show all you need to know. This, obviously, came from Adam, and as others have stated, if you have Okta on your resume, you're first up for a raise or a promotion. Customer churn: Super sustainable business model to sell 1-year deals with 3-month delayed start dates and tell customers it takes about 20 hours of work start-to-finish (to any customers reading this: please don't believe that crap). Drata was so young that for a while this just didn't matter, as we were growing so fast before many of our first customers renewal dates were even approaching. Now, it really does matter, and ICs are expected to fill in the gaps as our customer base just can't pay or goes out of business. Our CSM team is world-class and works as hard as they can, but these issues aren't fixable with just talented people. Product: It's a good product, and does what it's supposed to; but acting like it's anything more than a couple integrations and a well-thought-out spreadsheet only hurts us. The market realized this and cheaper competitors have popped up literally everywhere, and customers are seeing through the lack of differentiators. The sales people, and I suspect the product team too, believe that the product has already reached the ceiling of what it's capable of, notwithstanding some massive pivot to enterprise security monitoring (which would take a few miracles and the return of Jesus Christ himself for that to work). Diversity: LOL. A lot of this would make sense, or be more digestible, if Drata was on the fast track to an IPO. It's not, and we're all suckers for ever believing this. Having a customer base of tiny startups who can barely pay for a one-year deal is not getting you there. A 2bn valuation is extremely laughable, and I suspect (with absolutely no source to back this up—please don't remove this glassdoor!) that the Markowitz twins are eyeing another exit at a tiny fraction of that valuation, leaving all our equity worth zero. Just don't say that part out loud! I learned a lot during my time at Drata, mostly about what not to do and how not to behave in a professional work environment. What was once the golden child startup is facing a real identity crisis, and it will be interesting to see how this plays out.

1.0
9 Feb 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Fully remote work, unlimited PTO that you actually get to use, flexible schedule

Cons

Company has taken a cultural nosedive as they've filled the ranks of senior leadership with cutthroat execs and VPs from Okta, Clari, and other companies. It's obvious that the company is running out of money and panicking, and they're taking it out on the front line. AEs, SDRs, CSMs, people keep leaving. Leadership is putting their hopes and dreams into EMEA, cutting US positions and hiring in EMEA in a desperate attempt to stay afloat. Geographical pay scales are complicated and hidden. People in geographical Tier 1 are making less than people in Tier 3 for the same job, even though Tier 1 is supposed to be 20%+ more. The only people making money are Directors and above, everybody else is making a pittance. You will be actively discouraged from talking about your pay even though that is illegal, and pushed into a PIP if your manager doesn't like you.

1.0
11 Jan 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

-decent salary -health insurance -unlimited PTO (if your manager allows you to use it) -professional and personal development stipend

Cons

My time at Drata has been a dream turned nightmare, thanks to upper management's absurd demands disguised as encouragement for us to sacrifice sleep, meals, and breaks in the name of MORE. The leaders push unrealistic expectations, essentially promoting a culture that values burning out employees over fostering any semblance of work-life balance. Reps are practically ordered to neglect their personal lives, as if we're expected to be robots. “Work 16 hours a day or check yourself” as so beautifully said by the CRO, Adam Aarons, in the latest All Hands meeting. This trickles down to managers who have set the notion that work comes before all else. Adding insult to injury is the complete lack of accountability for managers. They can consistently miss quotas without facing any consequences, as long as they maintain a high-school cheerleader personality over Slack and never dare speak out, voice their opinions, or disagree with the directors. If you keep your mouth shut and chug the Drata kool-aid, you’ll do great here. But once you switch to water and the kool-aid runs out, you’ll quickly come to terms with the harsh reality of the comedy show masked as a unicorn SaaS company you’re a part of. Drata claims to the built on trust? Unlike the manager’s apparent immunity from repercussions, the only thing reps can trust is the insecurity of their job. No matter your performance, if you hit a slight rough patch, you're practically guaranteed to be nudged towards leaving with severance, saving management the hassle of putting you through a PIP. Ironically, a team that once prided themselves on being a part of this once amazing company now spend their time helping one-another find new roles and placing bets on who’s getting axed next. For a company with a core value of diversity, Drata is more like "Frata" – a fraternity of wealthy white men dominating not only 100% of leadership, but the entirety of the sales org; with diversity sadly reduced to token hires that are certainly looked down at in comparison to their white counterparts. Learning and enablement opportunities are non-existent; you'll only learn from your team members because management not only couldn't care less about your growth, but don’t have the skill-set themselves to actually help. At the end of the day, the managers are seemingly only there to kiss their bosses butts and tell their teams to “GET THAT BREAD” or “JUST DO IT!” Promotions at Drata are a joke, akin to chasing a carrot on a stick, with ever-shifting goal posts and rampant favoritism. Unless you're “their guy”, related to a higher-up, or have a history with Okta, forget about advancing. The promotion process feels like an exclusive club, where directors play favorites, leaving the rest in the dark. This had led to countless top performers being given no option but to leave because their careers were being tremendously held back the longer they remained a Drata employee. The sales director's inability to handle feedback is the rotten cherry on top of this dysfunctional cake, creating an environment devoid of constructive communication. Drata might boast higher-than-average salaries, but brace yourself for a toxic culture that prioritizes nepotism, favoritism, and being severely overworked rather than any sort of fairness or the core values they claim to uphold. Oh and the product isn’t even all that great. It’s no better or different than the competitors. It’s just three times the cost to compensate for the enormous churn issue being faced.

Viewing 1 - 3 of 191 Reviews

Glassdoor has 201 Drata reviews submitted anonymously by Drata employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Drata is right for you.