Cogent Communications: Latest Job Openings, Reviews and Ratings & Profile wise Salary Distribution

Cogent Communications Careers & Info

Current CEO: Dave Schaeffer

Status: Active

Cogent Communications, headquartered in Washington, D.C., started in 1999. In 2011, it was listed as one of the top five data providers in the world. The company has as many as 560 employees in the United States. Cogent Communications careers include IT maintenance, equipment maintenance, IT design, IT troubleshooting, business sales and customer service. Those in executive positions or with advanced IT engineering degrees can expect many travel opportunities.

Cogent sells volume Internet access to such clients as law firms, universities and financial services companies. It also provides management services for hosting companies, ISPs and other major bandwidth consumers. IT positions exist at many data center facilities in North America and Europe. Customer service staff responds by phone and by internet to issues arising from dedicated internet access, IP transit, Ethernet point-to-point and Colocation services. This is high pressure work because the internet is the life-blood of the businesses served by Cogent.

There are Cogent Data Centers in Anaheim, CA, and Atlanta, Ga. Other data centers are located in most major U.S. metro areas including three locations in the Chicago area alone. It has a similar presence in Canada and Mexico.

According to those working at Cogent, much of the staff is easy-going and fun despite the heavy workload and high expectations.

In addition to IT jobs, business sales representatives are critical to the growth and the success of the business. They complain that there are too many sales staff and too few potential customers. There is a high turnover rate, according to many employees, and this causes low morale. There also are not enough products to sell or enough places (Cogent-ready buildings) to sell it. This makes the process quite difficult for many sales representatives.

The Cogent culture can be somewhat rigid and profit-driven. Management tends to expect high volume sales and puts pressure on employees to meet unrealistic sales goals. Sales come from two types of clients. First, sales reps must be able to deal with everyone from small businesses to Fortune 500 companies. Second, sales reps must be able to relate to those customers who are NetCentric. These include service providers, application & content providers and network carriers.

Cogent benefits include medical and dental benefits. Some reported a significant sign-on bonus. Some sales employees noted that Cogent’s training program was essential to job success. Others said they appreciated the training because they got to go to Washington, D.C., for a week.

What jobs pay the most at Cogent Communications?

Web Services Developer is the highest paying job at Cogent Communications at $117,000 annually.