Do not join any Indian IT services company if you have a choice - Senior Associate Cognizant Employee Review

2.0
May 31, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Better than other Indian IT services companies.

Cons

Not a good company and will not provide you with growth opportunities. You will definitely not get a promotion if you are not engaged in at least 2 year long project under one manager. Even then you will get a promotion if you suck up to your manager a lot and you manager should be allocated a promotion for your designation (There are fixed number of promotion allocations to each manager based on revenue and growth prospects of the account he/she is handling). Basically your chances of promotion depend on the 1) length of time you work under 1 single manager 2) Growth of account (nothing to do with your hard work but, how well cognizant sells to the client) 3) Your relationship with your manager (which is important generally) 4) Location of your manager (If you and your manager are located at same client location it will boost your chances of promotion) 5) Number of promotions allocated to your manager at your designation level If you are not working for the same manager for 2 years and if both of you are not present in same location you will not get a promotion even if you are a genius and get appreciation mails from client daily for hard work and some unique solutions your provide to solve client's problems.

Explore other reviews about Cognizant

5.0
Jan 21, 2026
Anonymous intern
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

good company to work for as an intern, I learned a lot and was able to really collaborate and work with everyone

Cons

It is remote so it is harder to reach out to toher

1.0
Jun 5, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

A potential inroad into large client companies (Leave Cognizant ASAP) You aren't unemployed.

Cons

It's a body shop. Clients will view you accordingly. Contractors cannot be trusted with most tasks. You must be siloed (No room for growth) so you don't break anything. Your actual job is to fulfill gaps in the client's grunt work even if out of scope. If you don't, the hammer falls from client and Cognizant. Wages well below industry standards. 1% annual raises only exist because legally they must exist. Takes full advantage of H-1B slave system, where employees' families and homes will be thrown into a furnace if you aren't keeping Cognizant happy no matter what. Employees are complacent in their slavery. Management is just happy to get their extra crumbs and will reinforce the bad culture. C-suite is opaque. If you are familiar with India's caste system you will understand how "lessers" are treated. This also happens in a literal sense, you aren't totally safe just because you are the favored skin tone. Takes full advantage of modern white collar culture. "Your racist actions aren't actually racist if you aren't Caucasian." Expect the uphill battle to be even more steep if you're not Southeast Asian. You will hunt for your own work most of the time. Cognizant is not helpful in any regard. They exist to skim off the top and nothing else.

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