The Solera of today is not the same as just a few years ago.
Back then, the start-up culture they tried to foster was high-energy, high-reward, and frequently chaotic and misdirected. But you were allowed to fail fast, pick yourself up, and move on.
The company culture, and values, were everywhere. Literally written on the walls, and any company swag you'd get. Tattooed on the arm of our CFO. Back then, we'd occasionally get cynical about them, but more fool us, there was at least a strong culture that ultimately led the company to having your back, even if it didn't always seem that way. It wasn't for everyone, and there was a lot of churn, especially in HR & Finance, but those that survived generally flourished, and the good times by far outweighed the bad, with a strong sense of camaraderie.
In 2016, Vista Equity acquired Solera, apparently for far too much. For the first two years, nothing much changed, but in 2018, everything changed. The CEO, and eventually his entire team, were ousted. The new CEO stuck around for a couple of months, before seeing the 'strategy' and bailing. That was the first red flag to many of us. Vista implanted another CEO, and ultimately nearly all of the leadership team.
Over the next couple of years, many good people left, and many more were let go, to either not be replaced, or be replaced off-shore. IT support was outsourced to the lowest bidder. Covid arrived, and people had to work from home. As a result 2021 saw the implementation of various 'productivity' (spying) tools to make sure you were working. Of course, the tools are flawed, they always are, but in the new zero-trust culture, it gave the management team some sort of comfort. Another couple of companies from Vista's portfolio were merged into Solera in an attempt to find more 'efficiencies' and ultimately to bundle up a few less-than-stellar Vista companies into something that might eventually be viable for a sale.
In the space of about two years, maybe 80%+ of the people I worked with, many of whom were friends, left. If you're looking for a company that might pay ok, but does not remotely care about your work/life balance, your opinions or your general well-being, then this could be the place for you. The very high rate of churn means you could move up the ladder quickly.
Make no mistake, Vista are working to a highly tested playbook to eventually divest Solera. They know exactly what they're doing. They over-paid for something that was not as it appeared, and now they're trying to tie up a bunch of loose ends so they can make bank and get out of there. Everyone that still works there knows exactly who will benefit from all of this, and the other 99% can just suck it up and move on.
