Advent Software Reviews

Pros

Other consultants were a true pleasure to work with. Everyone (excluding senior mangament) would help you out whenever needed, returning phone calls and emails.

Cons

Senior Management is destructive to the company.

Management discouraged or prevented career advancement and destroyed employee moral. This company is most aptly descriped as a professional sorority. Before you accept an offer, be aware of the atmosphere of gossip mongoring and back stabbing. Get ready "play the game" from day one.

Advice to Senior Management

Both empoyeers and employees make a commiment when they enter into a mutual beneficial relationship. Learn to treat your workers with respect and they will respect your for it.

Pros

All views below come from my perspective as a Professional Services Consultant. I have no insight into compensation structure outside of my group.

Leadership:
Senior management appears to care about employee happiness in the San Francisco office (headquarters). Leadership is able to leverage the size of its customer base to force potential partners into standardized solutions.

Career:
There is great learning potential for job seekers with no experience within Advent's core operating space (financial, software). Advent aims to give everyone an equal chance at joining the company, as long as they demonstrate some basic aptitude. A recent grad with an English major or a high school dropout stand an equal chance with an experienced professional with a CS/Economics background in terms of joining their new hire ranks supporting their software or on the consulting front.

Non-monetary Benefits:
Advent Software adopts many forward-thinking policies benefits-wise, such as health insurance for pets.

Compensation/Salary:
(Before I comment on pros, I want to break down how compensation is handled in consulting. Salary is divided into a base salary (below average) and a “utilization schedule,” which is essentially a watermark-style bonus. A maximum bonus probably gives a slightly above average salary.) If you are willing to play the game in a relatively non-meritocratic structure to earn bonuses, success can be achieved. When projects are few and far between, the base salary is quite adequate for the work done.

Culture:
Many departments in the San Francisco office have a happy atmosphere. The San Francisco office is pet-friendly, and there is often a playful atmosphere in many departments. The consulting culture is vastly different, with constant threats of layoffs from superiors.

Cons

Leadership:
Mid-level leadership is concerned primarily with self-preservation and image/perception. To illustrate, a manager has openly stated that, “you should be less concerned about whether you’re doing a good job at the client and worry more about keeping your Advent contacts happy.” As a consulting/services group, it is simply unacceptable to have consultants prioritize internal perception over client project success.
Senior leadership has demonstrated poor business judgment by allowing mid-level management to perpetuate poor business tactics, including a revenue-first approach to their business units. The internal mantra is to generate consulting or product revenue whether or not it is in the client’s best interest. This often results in deceiving clients into more consulting or into products that it needs, which is unacceptable at a business level.

Career:
As a mid-20s professional (with only few years of experience) coming in with a financial and software background, there was little to learn from both a technical standpoint and a financial standpoint. Career growth options are limited to lateral movements into project management or sales consulting. Additionally, career improvement is based more on internal perception than on resulting client success, leadership, or team chemistry. Mid-level management looks more favorably on those raising their hands to agree with superiors (such as agreeing to deceive clients) rather than those constructing arguments for more ethically sound revenue streams.

Benefits:
The overall benefits package is fair. From the consulting group, the inability to control your vacation days is a struggle. There have been instances where vacation has been requested and approved months in advance of the vacation, and then denied closer to the vacation date.

Compensation/Salary:
The base salary is a bit below average. Achieving success in utilization-based bonuses requires constant posturing and requires being able to prioritize internal perception and company revenue over client success. (If a project can be done in one week, and a client has allocated two weeks of money for it, then you must be able to extract all two weeks of money from the client even if it means idling at the client for a week.)

Culture:
As stated above, there is a very negative atmosphere in consulting, with constant threats of layoffs from superiors. Based on discussions with other consultants, I estimate that, at best, 20% of consultants are happy with their job situation, with maybe another 30% that are simply satisfied with their jobs. Additionally, the prioritization of revenue at all costs over client success and happiness will challenge those from consulting/services organizations where client satisfaction drives team/career success.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to past consultants that have resigned from Advent within one to two months of being hired. Understand that the consulting culture is different from the overall company culture. Understand why internal perception is prioritized higher than client success. Talk to consultants that are unhappy about the atmosphere in consulting. Look at consultants that have achieved "success" in Advent and look at their background, expertise, and leadership compared to what is available in the consultant pool. Find out why these comments have always fallen on deaf ears, even up to senior management.

Pros

The work/life balance is well established and supported at Advent. There is a family-like atmosphere, and during many holidays employees are encouraged to bring their kids to work. The company is relatively flat and its members accessible so lateral movements and promotions are frequent and easily attained. It is not uncommon to meet people who have been with Advent between 5 and 15 years. Something not heard of much in any company these days. This adds to a deep knowledge of the software for financial services niche. Advent also has a very stable business model with multiple streams of recurring revenue and the lion's share of the market place.

If it is true that we hire people who are like ourselves then Advent says volumes about the Executive Management team and the employees as a whole. It is rare to find so many great people to work with all at one company. It is fair to say that the majority of employees including the management are truly great people. Fair-mindedness, accessibility, a realistic approach to work and personal life seem to be characteristics held by most, if not all people in the company. Finally, having been in the market for 25 years, Advent has products and services that provide end to end solutions for the smallest one-person shop all the way up to to global institutions. Great people developing great products.

Cons

Infrastructure. Advent's broad spectrum of products and services is fantastic, but managing over 4500 clients with a multitude of different products, prices, contract types and special conditions for each client is project to be reckoned with every day. The software systems used to manage the business are numerous, disconnected and fraught with data errors. Although the systems are in the process being upgraded and integrated, 25 years of client records is a tremendous amount of data to track particularly when that data is manually entered. Business intelligence data has been difficult to extract and when it is there is a risk of inaccurate data. Again, all of this in the process of being updated and cleaned. However, the errors demand a high degree of attention and cross checking for accuracy through 4-5 different systems and this leads to employee fatigue. The fantastic work/life balance combined with these infrastructure road blocks keep employees from working efficiently and effectively.

Product development seems to move slower than other software companies. This is probably due to the lack of competition with Advent, and devotion to the financial services section alone. However, learning from other software companies innovation, creativity, and flexibility

Advice to Senior Management

Senior Management know what they are doing and will no doubt direct the company toward growth. However, it would be good to see more Executive Management and Sr. Managers with an MBA degree. Many do not have that level of education and some may argue if an MBA is even necessary. However, I believe that education will bring a new level of creativity, more sophisticated decision making and a broader knowledge of best practices in business in general. All of which I believe will add to the overall intellectual resources, and ultimately, to the maturity of Advent as a company.

Pros

Its a market leader with intelligent people working at the company. If you want to learn and be challenged, then you will enjoy working here. To build on this, there can defintiely be a clique-like mentality in some groups. These can be beneficial and detrimental at the same time. If you prove yourself quickly as a comptent, hard-working individual, then you will find yourself surounded by people that are interested in seeing you succeed. If you do not prove yourself in this manner, you will undoubtedly find yourself in limbo or on your way out, and probably surounded by people that share your same fate.

Cons

Cons

They have a tendency to retain the fat a bit too long. I know there is protocal to all employee management; however, because a large part of our jobs are working with clients, this could cause long-term damage to the positive client relationships that make this company a market leader. Another downside to this company is that there is a definite political nature at Advent. I have experienced that achieving objectives in an efficient manner could sometimes be bottlenecked by political approvals. This does not occur the majority of the time and I can't generalize this across the entire organizaiton, but I have experienced this.

Advice to Senior Management

Advice to Senior Management

Cut the fat and reward top employees in a timely manner.

Pros

Its a market leader with intelligent people working at the company. If you want to learn and be challenged, then you will enjoy working here. To build on this, there can defintiely be a clique-like mentality in some groups. These can be beneficial and detrimental at the same time. If you prove yourself quickly as a comptent, hard-working individual, then you will find yourself surounded by people that are interested in seeing you succeed. If you do not prove yourself in this manner, you will undoubtedly find yourself in limbo or on your way out, and probably surounded by people that share your same fate.

Cons

They have a tendency to retain the fat a bit too long. I know there is protocal to all employee management; however, because a large part of our jobs are working with clients, this could cause long-term damage to the positive client relationships that make this company a market leader. Another downside to this company is that there is a definite political nature at Advent. I have experienced that achieving objectives in an efficient manner could sometimes be bottlenecked by political approvals. This does not occur the majority of the time and I can't generalize this across the entire organizaiton, but I have experienced this.

Advice to Senior Management

Cut the fat and reward top employees in a timely and decisive manner.

Pros

Good management , good working environment, and great operational business plan. Very good work/life balance policies & green company initiatives.

Cons

Lack of clarity between the business units, overlapping products, and questionable acquisitions.

Advice to Senior Management

Lots of ups and downs for the last 25 years. We need a clear course for the next 5 years.

Pros

Good access to technology, good management and good working environment. They also have a fairly decent strategy and they hire employees for the long term.

Cons

It is a Microsoft shop and they are falling behind in the technologies they use for implementation. It also increases their cost of implementation markedly and will eventually slow development time as well.

Advice to Senior Management

I would suggest a huge rethink in the technology mix. They ignore open source and languages like C# and ErLang/Python at their peril.

Pros

Company Culture is really fun.

Cons

Lots of travel. Can be a little uncomfortable if you are adverse to mixing business and pleasure.

Advice to Senior Management

Sometimes there's a cultishness about this company. It's a little freaky for a new employee.

Pros

Great place for work/life balance. Very strong in benefits, employee wellness, benefits. If you are at a senior (mid-level management and up) enough level the stock program can be good (although if not senior enough is largely non-existant), but all are eligible for a great ESPP. Cool that you can bring a dog to the office. The company is overall pretty solid, showing consistent, but relatively slow, growth. Lots of long-term employees (both + and - to this). Client base is also very solid investment management firms with most being long-term year over year customers. Basically the leading company in a fairly niche market. It's in San Francisco (limited number of non-media software companies). Lots of smart people, many of which really knew the details and nuances of the industry.

Cons

Career opportunities, promotions, and new opportunities can be VERY slow, especially if you have come from outside company (i.e., seems as if long-term employees have grown to expect this, and feel the stability and benefits). Also found the executive team at the top to be very political, the CIO rules the roost largely unchecked on most decisions and the ripples from that can go through the organization. The next level down management was hit or miss, but largely long-term employees that did an ok job, but lacking in real outside depth, perspective, or interest to develop it (a lot of "well this is how we've always done things, looked at it, etc......), including controlling the flow of information and really trusting employees.

This isn't a plus/minus, but the cultural fit would largely be good with people that like collaborative, consensus building, people-focused versus ones that thrive on change, innovation, or rapid decision making and task-driven environments. Using big company, maybe an HP, not a Google or Cisco.

Advice to Senior Management

Create more opportunities for advancement, promotion; look for ways to challenge employees and give more responsibility with demonstrated performance. Work to improve or at least understand the impacts of leadership team politics when making decisions.

Pros

It's totally laid back. Nobody's standing over your shoulder, or breathing down your neck. There are some pretty smart people. I have a great manager who seems to take care of us, and definitely knows what he's doing. That's probably my best reason.

Cons

Our (3rd) floor is totally overcrowded, and as such, we have no privacy whatsoever. Because of its overutilization, the mens room smells like shite all the time, so you have to breathe through your mouth.

I'm not crazy about the location. And unless you drive, you HAVE to leave before it starts getting dark. I've never had to think about that before.

Advice to Senior Management

Telecommuting would help reduce the load on the 3rd floor, and in the mens room. Fix up your VPN so that everyone can get up and running, and then establish a policy for employees you TRUST will work from home.