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Cornerstone OnDemand

Engaged employer

Strong advise against engagement with the company! - Lead Software Engineer Cornerstone OnDemand Employee Review

1.0
17 Nov 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people you actually do work with.

Cons

I would strongly advise against any engagement with Cornerstone OnDemand! I was fired one month after I received a rare bonus for my excellent performance. Both my line manager and my colleagues were shocked, as they were all happy with my work. My line manager did not know about it before I did. A few of my other high-performing colleagues were fired, too. This was part of a large layoff that happens semiannually! Apparently, I was hired the year after the previous layoff, and in the same year I was hired, I was let go due to a new layoff, right after getting performance bonus. How can you commit to a company knowing you could be fired at any moment, through no fault of your own? If someone from the company is reading this review, please address this question, you may ignore the rest. I hope you are done reading by now. If not: 1. The company is filled with bureaucracy at all levels. Here are some examples that will affect an engineer most often: bureaucracy in backlog planning means you often have no work at all, or you have far too much due to steep deadlines. There is also bureaucracy in technical decisions; for example, you are required to always throw exceptions to log any error (in .NET, this is a huge performance hit and a minor security risk) or spend literally months adhering to a bespoke health-check solution that adds no value compared to a standard approach. There are many more examples. 2. Your work is constantly affected by outages of bespoke company services. 3. I got lucky with a two-year-old laptop. Most of my colleagues had laptops that were, no joke, roughly 10 years old, and management would not approve new ones. 4. There was never even the prospect of team-building activities. If you are still thinking of taking an offer from this company, at least as an engineer, I don't know what could make you think otherwise.

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Cornerstone OnDemand Response
6mo
Thank you for sharing your feedback and being candid about your experience. We understand that unexpected changes, especially workforce reductions, can feel deeply unsettling and impact both confidence and trust. We want to acknowledge the human side of these moments and how they affect real people and real careers. Our commitment is to make decisions with care and transparency while improving efficiency and reducing unnecessary complexity in how we operate, creating an environment where people feel valued and supported. We also know that progress matters more than promises, and we are reporting regularly on progress when it comes to business technology and processes, which continues to be an area of focus for us. Thank you again for sharing your feedback . --Carina Cortez

Explore other reviews about Cornerstone OnDemand

5.0
7 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great leadership. Clear vision for growth and success.

Cons

Acquisitions created competing products and culture.

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Cornerstone OnDemand Response
1mo
Thanks for sharing this; it's great to hear your positive outlook on our leadership and vision as that’s something we really care about. There can be challenges that come along with acquisitions, especially when it comes to aligning products and culture. While these decisions are made to support growth and long-term success, they don’t always feel seamless in the moment. Again, I appreciate you sharing your perspective and wish you all the best. -Carina Cortez, Chief People Officer
2.0
5 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The people by far were the reason I stayed at the company for so long. Working with people who helped be part of the solution rather than part of the problem was exciting and fun. Working to solve issues together and collaboratively supporting each other was a great way to drive cross functional collaboration and success,

Cons

Senior leadership is a constant turnover with consistent pivots in strategy and direction before there was time to test if something was working. WIth consistent reductions in force, teams have found it hard to stay motivated and unclear as to what the current strategy is. Decisions are made with little context or reasoning to the middle management layer which causes dissatisfaction across the frontline teams. Comp plans were often delayed, incorrectly paid and something we had to spend a ton of time figuring out if we were getting paid correctly or missing something.

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