Glad to be gone - Anonymous employee Cognizant Employee Review

3.0
Jun 18, 2013
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Unlimited PTO - Casual dress environment

Cons

- Unlimited PTO. It sounds great on paper, but your time off (both when and how much) is regulated by management. Instead of being secure that you can take time off that you've earned, you're monitored and made to feel guilty. - Lack of camaraderie. Don't expect to go out for drinks after work or have lunch together. Depending on your manager, you may even have to get permission to participate in things like potlucks during the day. - Lack of direction from upper management. Even though we had pretty aggressive team initiatives, we never had a clear understanding of how the work we were doing fit into the overall goals of the company. This resulted in a lot of confusion and projects stretching out far longer than they should have. - Upper management was completely out of touch. Direct managers knew what was going on in the department but didn't have any real power. Upper management was clueless and made decisions that were not in the best interest of the company or the department. - Confusing internal processes and policies: multiple IT systems, no admin privileges on your machine, multiple passwords to manage. Very corporate. - Confusing bonus structure. After an hour long meeting explaining the bonus structure and the payout amounts, people still didn't understand and just resigned themselves to accepting whatever they got. - No clear communication about raises or promotions. Raises usually come around sometime between January and April. By June there was still no communication about whether or not there would be raises for the year. Most of the time, it felt like the product teams were completely siloed from each other. Teams working on the same floor were unaware of the other's processes or work. There was absolutely no collaboration between teams or departments. If you want to innovate within your role, this is not the company for you.

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5.0
May 27, 2026
Anonymous employee
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CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good projects, challenging work, lots to learn

Cons

The way the bench status is structured

1
3.0
Jun 17, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Cognizant can be a great place to work at. You have to be self-motivated and driven. You won't often be given a script on how to do your job well. But if you are willing to search for new opportunities, you will find success.

Cons

Just like many other tech companies, layoffs are happening all the time. This often brings many projects to a complete halt. Management never communicates when someone is laid off. And when they are laid off, they often never back fill positions, leaving existing team members working the equivalent of three jobs at once. Most teams there are skeleton crews, ensuring that they cannot reach their full potential.

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