Thoughtworks reviews

4.0

79% would recommend to a friend

(4,657 total reviews)
avatar

Mike Sutcliff

79% approve of CEO

57% positive business outlook

Thoughtworks has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 4,657 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Thoughtworks 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

5K reviews
1.0
Mar 23, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

I worked with some great and even a few exceptional people, learned a lot, had some fun times, some nice benefits, great way to see/hear about different areas of the software business.

Cons

It can be vaguely cultish, you are pretty much expected to LOVE Thoughtworks and be 100% on board with their way of doing things. Especially when it comes to Agile ideas, lots of dogma here. They are constantly pushing how great it is to work at TW, this really bugged me after a few months. Lots of corporate politics, they claim they are above them but in some ways they are as bad or worse than their corporate clients. There are also quite a few people around who have been with the company for a long time and form an 'in crowd', how well you do in the company has a lot to do with how how good your relationship is with those people. This can mean the difference between getting a raise, promotion, good work assignment or not. Feels very Frat house like and not in a good way. Thoughtworks markets themselves both externally and internally as being an elite company with top developers. As a result of this the are quite a few people with very inflated egos who make sure everyone else knows how great they are. If you ask the wrong question or like the 'wrong' technology they will belittle you. Think obnoxious people on forums, IRC, etc, it can be bad. The pay is not that great, they expect you to work longs hours and go over and above for the company without compensation. Getting stuck on a weekly flight commute sucks, a 4 hour flight every Monday at 6 am and Thursday at 9 pm gets miserable fast. The travel can be fun but few people enjoy it for more than 6 months to a year. Developer turnover is high, a lot of unhappy people, I have never worked for a company with such a high level of employee misery. There is a weird contrast where you have people who are very positive and then people who are miserable and sometimes the same person will display both depending on the situation. That can happen anywhere but at TW it is on a whole new level and comes with the consulting territory I guess.

3.0
Jun 19, 2008
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Opportunity for world travel is great. Each office is just as good as the next. You will learn a lot from everyone that you work with. The best place to really learn and understand Agile development and project management.

Cons

Projects can be quite boring if you aren't willing to travel because of family. Very weak leadership. Many 8+ year ThoughtWorks employees are given token jobs that are a waste of company resources, and half attempts at improving the company.

2.0
Feb 9, 2026

Bureaucratic Nightmare

Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- my compensation is good

Cons

- constantly reinventing process in a way that will almost certainly be worse than what we were doing before - very few opportunities to actually lead teams, although everybody in leadership does their best to pretend that's not the case. Engagements are usually just "staff augmentation" where all we're doing is adding extra bodies - leadership seems to be trying to centralize process/decision making, which is the opposite of what makes large tech companies function well - quality of people seems like it's decreased - company culture has become non-existent - give anybody in leadership negative feedback, and they seem annoyed to be talking about it

avatar
Thoughtworks Response
2mo
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We’re glad to hear that compensation has been a positive aspect for you, and we appreciate the candor in your feedback. We understand how changes in processes can significantly impact day-to-day work, and we know how important it is to maintain trust. Feedback like yours is important as we continue reflecting on where we can improve. If you’d like to share more, please feel free to reach out to tim.ogorman@thoughtworks.com so we can better understand your experience.
Viewing 1 - 3 of 4,657 Reviews

Glassdoor has 5,963 Thoughtworks reviews submitted anonymously by Thoughtworks employees. Read employee reviews and ratings on Glassdoor to decide if Thoughtworks is right for you.