Engineering at risk from centralisation
Pros
There are a lot of great people at SolarWinds, some interesting and varied projects to work on, and an increasingly varied technology stack, which is bringing in a lot of cutting edge technology and system architecture. This makes it a good (and increasingly better still) place to work from a technology perspective. Career progression opportunities in Engineering are good for those that are high performers. There is also a lot of attention paid to supervision, mentoring, career progression etc. Engineering leadership within the UK is very good, and has improved greatly in recent years so there is good support and direction for matters within their jurisdiction.
Cons
Since the former LogicNow was acquired by SolarWinds, the way Engineering projects are managed has gradually changed. Decision making all too often becoming centred on the Ottawa office which has a very different (and not particularly enlightened or agile) management style. Teams in the UK increasingly need to collaborate with teams in Ottawa (and elsewhere) which means more time in meetings and less autonomy to get stuff done as they see fit. Skilled and high performing teams and individuals have therefore been disempowered and managed remotely from Ottawa, which has led to some good people leaving. This is unfortunate given the good UK engineering leadership, which seem powerless to influence this - it seems like decisions are being taken over their heads.