6 ms·

Man there is some serious bloat in most tech companies. Why on earth does Docusign need 7000+ employees?

by spaceman_2020 4y ago

toomuchtodo 4y ago
Internal fiefdoms could be a component. Let's Encrypt has a staff of 16. I'm not unsympathetic to sales, marketing, DevRel, etc (ongoing BAU and solid growth are both crucial to an established enterprise) but a gap of low teens to 7000 people for using emails to proof identity and store documents for retention periods? Come onnnnnnn.
- djohnston 4y ago
  It's truly insane how much the success of leadership is measured by the size of recursive reports. It's as asinine as the "use it or lose it" budgeting strategy.
  - spaceman_2020 4y ago
    If one of the criteria for your success as a manager is “managed a team of size X”, it stands to reason that you would want to increase that X as much as possible.
    - djohnston 4y ago
      Yep, the existence of the incentive is undeniable, the question is why is this an incentive when it leads to cancerous growth within organisations, and is generally detached from any specific business outcome.
- missedthecue 4y ago
  An internal fiefdom is something you expect at IBM. Lunacy if DocuSign is allowing that to happen.
  - lumost 4y ago
    Why is IBM special in this regard? Fiefdoms appear in any organization larger than a few dozen people.
    - missedthecue 4y ago
      IBM is a place where people go and rot in a cubicle for 40 years and then retire. Fiefdoms are a natural consequences. Companies like DocuSign have turnover and growth such that it becomes somewhat more difficult to build fiefdoms.
  - no_wizard 4y ago
    They're everywhere at most companies, sometimes in non obvious ways. For instance, marketing sometimes has its own developer / engineering teams, rather than running their work through the engineering org. Thats an example.
- lrem 4y ago
  Taking into account what Docusign are doing, they probably need legal in retainer for every single of the 180 countries they sell to. How many languages do they need to support in the software? And don't forget sales. Stuff adds add quickly. Then, remember, productivity is sub-linear with headcount.
johnfonesca 4y ago
I'm very curios how many developers DocuSign has. At Bulksign https://bulksign.com https://bulksign.com, we're building a digital signatures platform which has comparable features with a tiny team.
- seper8 4y ago
  Lil bit of feedback, your site _really_ doesn't read well on ultrawide :)
  - johnfonesca 4y ago
    Thank you for providing feedback, we will improve UW support for the landing page.
    - LEDThereBeLight 4y ago
      The site isn’t responsive in general. You really need a designer.
- yardstick 4y ago
  I haven’t looked at your site, but please, please, have a good export/bulk download option. DocuSign and HelloSign are terrible in this respect. Just give me a simple, straightforward way (Ie couple clicks max) to dump every single signed document and their metadata so I can pass it to auditors. That would be a great feature.
  - johnfonesca 4y ago
    Yes, we actually have a mass download application (it's Windows only so far) which downloads all signed PDF files. https://bulksign.com/docs/EnvelopeDownloader.htm https://bulksign.com/docs/EnvelopeDownloader.htm
    - yardstick 4y ago
      That’s great. I would suggest you also look at a Google Takeout approach which is just a download from your servers rather than having to run a client. But I definitely appreciate the windows option more than what your competitors provide.
delecti 4y ago
I don't know if it accounts for all 7000, but sales, legal, and support would account for quite a bit. Docusign is definitely a company that needs rock solid legal and support teams.
- tomcam 4y ago
  You're completely right. And you forgot to include international issues, if that's part of their business model. But 7,000. Also, at this point I feel they could coast a bit on the sales. They are the standard in the USA, period. IMHO the service is suitably viral and must sell itself in large part. (I could be way off on the last assumption.)
  - notahacker 4y ago
    They want sales involved for any purchase over £2k per annum, and I suspect it's because actually a lot of their revenue comes from the sort of order sizes and software integrations you only achieve from having account managers and support staff asking a lot of questions about their business process and software platforms, and then fielding questions from legal.

Man there is some serious bloat in most tech companies. Why on earth does Docusign need 7000+ employees?

Internal fiefdoms could be a component. Let's Encrypt has a staff of 16. I'm not unsympathetic to sales, marketing, DevRel, etc (ongoing BAU and solid growth are both crucial to an established enterprise) but a gap of low teens to 7000 people for using emails to proof identity and store documents for retention periods? Come onnnnnnn.

djohnston 4y ago
It's truly insane how much the success of leadership is measured by the size of recursive reports. It's as asinine as the "use it or lose it" budgeting strategy.
- spaceman_2020 4y ago
  If one of the criteria for your success as a manager is “managed a team of size X”, it stands to reason that you would want to increase that X as much as possible.
  - djohnston 4y ago
    Yep, the existence of the incentive is undeniable, the question is why is this an incentive when it leads to cancerous growth within organisations, and is generally detached from any specific business outcome.
missedthecue 4y ago
An internal fiefdom is something you expect at IBM. Lunacy if DocuSign is allowing that to happen.
- lumost 4y ago
  Why is IBM special in this regard? Fiefdoms appear in any organization larger than a few dozen people.
  - missedthecue 4y ago
    IBM is a place where people go and rot in a cubicle for 40 years and then retire. Fiefdoms are a natural consequences. Companies like DocuSign have turnover and growth such that it becomes somewhat more difficult to build fiefdoms.
- no_wizard 4y ago
  They're everywhere at most companies, sometimes in non obvious ways. For instance, marketing sometimes has its own developer / engineering teams, rather than running their work through the engineering org. Thats an example.
lrem 4y ago
Taking into account what Docusign are doing, they probably need legal in retainer for every single of the 180 countries they sell to. How many languages do they need to support in the software? And don't forget sales. Stuff adds add quickly. Then, remember, productivity is sub-linear with headcount.

johnfonesca 4y ago

I'm very curios how many developers DocuSign has. At Bulksign https://bulksign.com https://bulksign.com, we're building a digital signatures platform which has comparable features with a tiny team.

seper8 4y ago
Lil bit of feedback, your site _really_ doesn't read well on ultrawide :)
- johnfonesca 4y ago
  Thank you for providing feedback, we will improve UW support for the landing page.
  - LEDThereBeLight 4y ago
    The site isn’t responsive in general. You really need a designer.
yardstick 4y ago
I haven’t looked at your site, but please, please, have a good export/bulk download option. DocuSign and HelloSign are terrible in this respect. Just give me a simple, straightforward way (Ie couple clicks max) to dump every single signed document and their metadata so I can pass it to auditors. That would be a great feature.
- johnfonesca 4y ago
  Yes, we actually have a mass download application (it's Windows only so far) which downloads all signed PDF files. https://bulksign.com/docs/EnvelopeDownloader.htm https://bulksign.com/docs/EnvelopeDownloader.htm
  - yardstick 4y ago
    That’s great. I would suggest you also look at a Google Takeout approach which is just a download from your servers rather than having to run a client. But I definitely appreciate the windows option more than what your competitors provide.

delecti 4y ago

I don't know if it accounts for all 7000, but sales, legal, and support would account for quite a bit. Docusign is definitely a company that needs rock solid legal and support teams.

tomcam 4y ago
You're completely right. And you forgot to include international issues, if that's part of their business model. But 7,000. Also, at this point I feel they could coast a bit on the sales. They are the standard in the USA, period. IMHO the service is suitably viral and must sell itself in large part. (I could be way off on the last assumption.)
- notahacker 4y ago
  They want sales involved for any purchase over £2k per annum, and I suspect it's because actually a lot of their revenue comes from the sort of order sizes and software integrations you only achieve from having account managers and support staff asking a lot of questions about their business process and software platforms, and then fielding questions from legal.