Pros
At its heart, Avalara is (or was) a good place to work. It had a strong culture, good benefits, good wfh options, good pay and good prospects. There are still good people here fighting for the old Avalara, but it is a losing battle made eminently more unpleasant by the new owners. The day-to-day is good if you enjoy the work, but it is becoming increasingly hard to ignore everything else that is happening around the business.
Cons
In 2022 a Private Equity firm (Vista) bought Avalara. Since then everything has been steadily going down hill. We're at the point now where all employees have been stack ranked into a 10%/70%/20% (low/core/high achievers), with the 10% low performers being put onto short-term performance plans which are unachievable. Those people (many of whom are not low performers at all, but were forced into the bracket) are "taking the option to quit", when in fact they were given no option. Of course they're only doing this in countries where they can get away with it legally, but it is happening. At the same time, the new "Go Global" initiative is a friendly name for firing people in high cost centers and then hiring replacements in low cost centers. This is ongoing. If you are joining Avalara from India or Brazil, there's a good chance you're replacing someone who did their job perfectly well but was fired because Vista didn't want to pay them what they were worth. If you under perform in your first 6 months, you'll be replaced just as quickly. New performance management policies have come into force as of 2024, and they're not pretty. The Orange has turned a shade of Brown on the inside.
