Stagnant Company - Senior Architect Ellucian Employee Review

2.0
Oct 24, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very laid back company. In my role I was allowed to work remote full time, pretty much set my own hours, and manage myself. I only met with my actual manager about once a month. This is what I wanted when I left my last job - to be my own project manager, and I got it. I was trusted to take on a very unique role in the company and the type of work I got to do in this role was very interesting and challenging. I learned many new technologies that I had not worked with in the past. I was a go-to person for a large organization in the company and felt like my contribution was really valuable and important. If you want a laid back company that is just satisfactory in most areas, then by all means work here. Personally I had to move on. Maybe I'm just hard to please, but I deliver great things and demand greatness in return from my employer!

Cons

Despite being a very valuable superstar employee, I received very mediocre salary increases and no bonuses for my role because it's non-billable. There wasn't really a way for me to advance out of the role I was in, either. The salary increases suck because the company isn't doing very well (I'm told they were better a few years ago). Utilization for billable employees was low across the board in my department - which I blame on management. Either downsize the department or otherwise do something to bring utilization up across the board, but don't expect everyone to tolerate mediocre pay increases, especially your superstar employees who have no control over utilization percentages. Ellucian is the product of a recent merger between Datatel and Sungard Higher Education, and in many ways there is an internal rivalry between the two which is counter-productive. Management is trying to change this but petty feuding between team members from different sides of the merger still abounds. Working from home and only talking to your manager once per month might sound nice, but I got sick of the lack of social interaction. In my previous company there was a good mix of remote work, client site engagements, and working out of the office, and there was a great camaraderie that I really miss. Because I was remote, and because everyone else was remote, it was really not possible to build many lasting relationships with coworkers. Even when I went into the office on occasion it was a ghost town. Finally, I just couldn't really get excited about the company's product offerings. Maybe some people care, but I find 40 year old archaic database software that runs most American universities to be quite boring. As a whole the company isn't really doing much that is innovative and bleeding edge. They've consolidated a de facto monopoly on this industry through mergers and acquisitions and now seem to be focused more on maintaining rather than finding new ways to expand and grow the business. Part of this is because their clients - universities - are averse to change, so Ellucian does not change, but this can only go on for so long.

Explore other reviews about Ellucian

5.0
May 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Work-life balance is amazing, great team to work with. Lots of opportunities to advance and learn new things

Cons

None. I've had an amazing experience working for Ellucian!

1
1.0
Apr 14, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Ellucian had some genuinely brilliant people. I mean real talent. Smart engineers, sharp support people who could look at a broken system and somehow see both the problem and the political disaster hiding behind it. A lot of people there cared deeply about higher ed. They understood that colleges and universities are not just “customers.” They are institutions trying to keep students moving, faculty supported, and operations alive with systems that often looked held together by duct tape, PLSQL scripts, and institutional trauma.

Cons

Then there was the C-suite. Every company has executives. That’s normal. But this group often felt less like corporate stewards and more like LinkedIn influencers who accidentally wandered into an ERP company. They seemed distant. Aloof. Not deeply engaged with the actual work, the clients, or the people carrying the weight. There was a lot of executive polish, a lot of corporate language, a lot of “vision,” but not always the kind of grounded leadership that makes employees say, “I trust these people with the future of the company.” At times, it felt like the people closest to the customers understood the business better than the people paid the most to lead it.

4
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