Avalara Employee Reviews about "management"

Pros

Co workers are incredible people and support each other regardless of management

Cons

Be prepared to field inappropriate comments. Be prepared to deal with a sit down and shut up mentality from those above you. Middle management is filled with Directors & VP who are only interested in furthering their careers. Customers are routinely sold products and services that are bogus, falsified, and hold no value. The only group that is satisfied appears to be the group that drinks together and has unlimited expense accounts.

Pros

If you live on or near Bainbridge Island (non-ferry rider), this is by far the hottest technology company for miles (excluding Seattle and points east). Their solution is still fairly unique, the technology sound and they spend quite a bit of time improving their software based on client/partner input. Their aforementioned partners are vast - almost 400 ranging from ERP's, eCommerce platforms, POS systems, etc.- and the company has done a fantastic job of including themselves into as many sales opportunities as possible. If you accept a sales job here and are lucky enough to receive some good partners, your sales will be through the roof (rare). If you get stuck with many of the un-certified, lesser partners, it will be an upward climb to even sniff your targets (common). The people are generally amiable, save any form of management (more on that below) and the culture tries hard to be cool and hip. While there is a wide range of ages in seemingly the same position, everyone gets along well and there doesn't seem to be much animosity one way or the other.

Cons

While I understand the CEO's determination in keeping the 'island culture' of Bainbridge, this company is getting too big too fast for them to keep trying to under pay and think that there is equal talent on their side of the sound. If you're not familiar with the geographic layout of their main offices, it is located on Bainbridge Island - a 35 minute ferry ride west of Seattle. Now while the idea of taking a ferry to work may sound appealing, I can assure you the novelty wears off quite quickly after realizing it just adds 35 minutes to your already 20-50 minute bus ride. And this is commuting from inside Seattle proper, add 30-60 minutes to that if you're coming from points east. So if being underpaid for a two or three hour commute sounds fun, this is the place for you. The only ones who do it happily are the few managers who are getting paid much too handsomely to complain. As I alluded to above, there is quite a discord between normal employees and the managers at Avalara. Never before have I seen such a blatant elitism that tends to permeate from almost all senior management. This is quite a contrast from the gregarious, outgoing nature of our CEO so it's quite puzzling, to say the least. They preach 'open-door policy' but are rarely inviting, so much so that they barely know who's working for them! It's truly top heavy. Lastly, the nepotism here is rampant and probably has something to do with the stagnant wages they've been getting away with for years. If you're pooling from an area where people are reluctant to do the reverse commute (as I mentioned above), it's no small wonder you can pay as low as they do and still thrive. Top it off by hiring as many siblings, friends and neighbors as possible and you start getting into a complicated work environment. Naturally, there is preferential treatment to those of which who get the job based more on relationship rather than merit. The issue of exhausting the island pipeline for employees is also changing - it is getting much more difficult to find qualified marketing managers from Bainbrige, that are willing to work for 15-20% under fair market value. This is apparent in their new hiring techniques, which are to dupe candidates into thinking their role is based in Seattle when only about 10% of the workforce have offices there.

Pros

Managers/Middle Management care a lot but have little power to improve work conditions.

Cons

Never in my life in a customer facing role have I seen a department disregarded and unappreciated in a company. Every department but the Support team got a holiday bonus. The management came together to personally bring their employees something to give a little holiday cheer with their own money. The excessive requests for overtime because the turn over rate causes burn out like no other. There are no incentives to work harder. People who do not perform to expectations are still kept even though their peers work harder but make the same wages. Continued promises of things getting better, but they aren't. There's nothing boosting morale. Everyone knows how stressful and difficult it is and they're all struggling together. I can't believe a company that boasts taking care of their employees is okay with this. Customer facing employees are what represent the company and you choose to treat them poorly. Imagine having every other department staffed so they can participate in company activities while we have to make accommodations just to attend quarterly meetings for one department. There's little growth because you can't do any learning because you're too busy working all the time to do anything else. I was treated better at Amazon.

Pros

A handful of awesome, hardworking people that make the craziness bearable. The product, truly one of the best products on the market currently. The clients, who are an interesting and diverse group of people.

Cons

Working at Avalara is like being in an abusive relationship. Some departments are better than others depending on who is managing and some people handle the stress better than others, but overall, a challenging place to work. Nepotism runs rampant, and is fine if the employees are hard workers and pull their weight, but too often others have to pick up the slack and correct repeated and frustrating errors (seriously a few people are moved from area to area because they have failed spectacularly but because they have some sort of pull with a VP, they are never fired, nor can you criticize them). Overt sexism. Working here is not for the faint of heart. High employee churn occurs because management considered workers to be disposable and condones toxic management styles. Online reviews are followed closely and employees (especially new ones) are 'encouraged' to cover bad reviews by posting lots of 'good' reviews.

Pros

Free beer, nice offices, a few really great people. The best "pro" is that I no longer work there. I am actually grateful that things were so deeply dysfunctional and intolerable because it ultimately motivated me to find a new job with higher compensation in a company that offers better working conditions, potential for growth and superior benefits. I bless every day since I have left, and grateful that I had the sense to leave before hopelessness and malaise overwhelmed me.

Cons

Too many to name. Management clearly views employees as disposable commodities, despite the measurable and significant contributions made by numerous talented employees. Most of the highly skilled, committed and mission-focused employees have left. I have personally witnessed dedicated employees treated with indifference, disrespect or disdain simply dependent upon the changing whims of newly hired upper management. Management is exclusively focused on self preservation and the potential realization of personal financial or professional gain. One might surmise that inauthentic or manufactured reviews are posted in order to bolster the ratings and artificially offset what is clearly a downward trend. There are certain VPs/SVPs who are nothing short of mean spirted, malicious, egotistical, grasping and avaricious. Just look for the departments with the revolving door of employees who have taken their expertise elsewhere and left a gaping hole. The company has lost its way and the culture has devolved dramatically. It's rather sad, especially if you had witnessed the company at its peak, when there was a sense of shared mission and delight in the boldness of this new venture. We were almost giddy with the possibilities before us, and eager to tackle every challenge. That feeling is entirely gone.

Pros

Avalara is a great company. Great culture. Great corporate environment. Very talented people. Great vision. Their product serves a very particular purpose and niche for the right market. I have no doubt that Avalara will very well take over the world with everything and anything tax. Casual atmosphere. Swanky looking offices. Beautiful facility.

Cons

COMPANY So first. This company is BURNING time and money. They then realized they weren't burning it fast enough and they still had some left, so they went and got gasoline to add to it to go faster. They will call it 'growing pains' or whatever soft language that they want to use, but the truth is this from my observation that the company got a giant investment of money, more than they possibly know what to do with. They've set absolutely unrealistic expectations for so many roles. Expectations that leave everyone extremely and hopelessly stressed. From an entry level role looking up it becomes so apparent that resources are being so ineffectively managed. Many upper managment roles reek with inexperience. It's new corporate structure makes it impossible to get anything done because you have to talk about doing it for 3 months. Telemarketing I will be clear. This role is not Inside Sales. This role is telemarketing. It is not in anyway shape or form remotely inside sales. That is only a title they use to make people in these roles feel better. Intelligence is highly discouraged. This job is all about mindless robotic calling to the absolute worst quality leads. They want biological human dialing machines and nothing more. If the technology existed the will replace this job with a robot INSTANTLY. In this role you