Toxic culture - Sr Sales Executive Avalara Employee Review

1.0
13 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

You get a paycheck, but sometimes you have to fight for 4-5 months to get your commissions paid out.

Cons

Avalara was a fantastic place to work pre-IPO and as a public company. Everything went downhill after the Vista acquisition. It took a year or so for the changes to play out. It is a shell of its former self and has turned into one of the worst company cultures in the software space. The CEO still thinks culture and morale are great across the organization which is hilarious. It is now and will continue to be a toxic, watch your back PIP culture. Leadership blames sales reps for poor performance even though there are mass changes (territory realignments, integration changes, etc.) and a million distractions year over year. Managers are always safe for some reason, even after catastrophic results. Do yourself a favor and look elsewhere for a sales job unless you want to work in a toxic environment where you're looking over your shoulder every day. There are other competitors in this space which will treat you better. There's also a half a million software companies out there. This isn't the one, believe me.

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Avalara Response
1mo
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We always strive to create a supportive and respectful environment for all employees and are sorry to hear you feel we missed the mark. We appreciate your feedback.

Explore other reviews about Avalara

5.0
2 June 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
1w
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.
1.0
4 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Passionate employees who "remember the good times before Vista" and want to get back to it (they all think this upcoming IPO will fix things, but I have strong doubts and I expect a large layoff to artificially inflate the company's value under the guise of "AI efficiency"). - A strong interest in AI technologies (even if leadership has no idea or expertise on how to effectively implement it, and don't provide employees enough time to implement AI techniques effectively). - Nice facilities - Market product leader

Cons

- Constant, daily new priorities requiring constant reactivity and preventing meaningful work from being done. This tramples the boots on the ground employees - Toxic work culture due to a private equity fixation on bottom-line optimization. Resist, and you'll be fired. Observed many new leaders last less than 6-months, - Constant layoffs and offshoring/outsourcing to Pune, India. No understanding of these strategies, leaving no geographical balance based on needs or strategy - As a result of gutting the People Operations teams, there are no formal job profiles and performance reviews are based on popularity and subjectivity - Overworked and burned out employees across the company - Pushy, angry, and rude cross-team relationships. Many sales and operations leaders model this after executive leadership and think this is the only way to get things done.

13
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Avalara Response
4d
Thank you for taking the time to share your experience. We strive to create a fair and respectful workplace, and we're sorry to hear this was not your experience. We appreciate your feedback.
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