Wonderful people, terrible management - Anonymous employee DAI Employee Review

2.0
Feb 21, 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

The people are great - incredible technical expertise, smart and knowledgeable. Projects are really interesting and you can get a lot of different types of experience - movement between home office/corporate and project is doable. I had a great manager that made it easier for career growth and promotions but that's incredibly dependent on your individual manager.

Cons

There is a lack of transparency around salaries and promotions and more junior-level people are generally severely underpaid, despite being overworked and overburdened. Little to no diversity or equity at the organization - a lot of work is being attempted by affinity groups to change but there is little support to move their initiatives forward. All groups are organized on volunteer time and run by more junior-level staff who are most passionate but least amount of power to change the organization. Efforts to push forward DEI initiatives have been actively blocked by executive management behind the scenes while they seemingly support these same initiatives publicly. Poor communication between executive management and the rest of the company regarding large changes in the business has fueled a lack of trust in the higher ups. There was a reorganization that recently occurred without much explanation that has led to significant retention issues and overwork for the employees who have remained at the company.

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5.0
Jan 26, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Highly professional, top notch technical experts in several fields

Cons

Work subject to USG funding

4.0
Feb 6, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Strong culture of integrity. Absolutely spectacular colleagues. Super interesting work.

Cons

Basically denuded of staff due to USAID cuts. Upper management had become obsessed with performance against metrics that were poorly fit to the business, and were focused entirely on how they might meet those metrics this week, without looking ahead to how to make structural improvements over the longer term.

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