PE Vultures Have Killed the Culture - Engineering Avalara Employee Review

1.0
Jul 23, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Taxes are a stable but boring field. They'll always be around. Plenty of really smart people solving hard problems with (mostly) good technology. You'll learn a lot.

Cons

Senior leadership has sold out completely. The private equity overlords say jump, and Scott and the crew say "how high?" I imagine they're getting rewarded nicely with bonuses and equity grants for their compliance. The company is in the process of shifting 70% of the workforce to cheap labor markets (primarily Pune, India) by the end of next year. There was a major layoff in 2023 and a significant number of terminations for performance (silent layoffs) in 2024. Employees were encouraged to give false scores on the annual Gallup engagement survey. Anything below a 5 was grounds for firing your manager. Why even have the survey if you're pressuring people to lie on it? Leadership insists upon gaslighting the remaining employees into believing the company is still a great place to work with a unique culture. While it used to be a fun, quirky place to work prior to the sale, that is no longer the case. Just do your job, keep your head down, and hope they don't decide to let you go so they can move your job overseas.

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Avalara Response
1y
Thank you for taking the time to offer feedback about your experience.

Explore other reviews about Avalara

5.0
Jun 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good org Solid product Good middle mgmt.

Cons

Like every SaaS org direction as a whole is a bit turbulent Needs to figure out how to properly lean into Enterprise

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Avalara Response
4w
Thank you for sharing your experience at Avalara. We appreciate your perspective and are glad to hear you’ve had a positive experience with the team and the work. We also value your thoughtful feedback as we continue to improve and grow. We’re grateful to have you on our orange team.
4.0
Jul 13, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Avalara truly has great people working for the company. The culture is strong, we wear orange and are out in the market having fun which is appreciated internally but also by our prospects, customers and partners. There is potential to make very good money along with enjoying many other great benefits that other companies i have worked for have not offered. Avalara does not hesitate to invest in software and other tools that help their employees do their jobs more efficiently and effectively.

Cons

There has been a lot of turnover at all levels which is not a bad thing because it brings new ideas and perspective to the company. With these new ideas and frameworks there has been a lot of change and shifting goals so you need to be adaptable to keep up. The loss of longtime employees also leaves a gap of institutional knowledge which can make finding answers to questions challenging.

1
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Avalara Response
2d
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience at Avalara. We love hearing that our culture, has had a meaningful impact on your experience, and we also appreciate your perspective on the pace of change across the business. Feedback like this helps us continue building on what is working well while improving how we support employees through growth and transition.
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