Pros
Work from home, opportunity to loosely define your role & career. Let's get one thing straight. Aurea acquires struggling software companies and makes money off of them. It is what they do and they're very good at it. They have a playbook and they run it. Their long term plan with any company they acquire is to trim the fat, retain as many customers as they can, and ultimately sell other products into them. If your company just got acquired, this is what they're going to do. At the end of a few years, they've grown their customer base, made their money back (and more) and have new IP in the form of your company's software. What does this mean for you? If you're in a 'non-essential' department/position, you'll likely be let go early. This isn't unfair, it's just business. If you identify yourself as a valuable resource, willing to enable their seasoned team to succeed, there is opportunity to keep your job and grow with Aurea. This is up to you. Retention bonuses exist for those who define themselves to be mission critical. Aurea uses a global employment model, which means most everyone works from home. This can be a big plus for some. Do you want to travel while you work? Go for it - just be available for your business hours. If you invest in Aurea, you will eventually face becoming a contractor. This is inevitable, as the owner of ESW Capital (private equity firm backing Aurea) believes this is the only way. They will adjust your pay to compensate for lack of benefits. In some cases, this can represent a pay increase for individuals. For those working in software development roles, I understand there to be ample opportunity to work with exciting technologies and broaden your scope. An oft-ignored benefit of working with global co-workers is the opportunity to familiarize yourself with different cultures and communication styles. This is potentially invaluable in today's ever-growing global workforce. Aurea has everything down to a process. This can open up some bottlenecks your company previously faced.
Cons
Job security is hard to come by, reactive and detached senior leadership, no transparency from executives. WFH can be tough for some. WorkSmart means you're monitored all day every day. Sure, it's up to your manager whether they want to use it, but it's a privacy concern for many. It's understandable why they use it, but clearly it's not for everyone. At no point did I feel that my job was secure until, after wave after wave of layoffs (even after promises of no more) - a retention bonus was offered. At that point, I was already looking for the door. Many of the initiatives seem very reactive, and I found a large percentage of my day being spent on the urgent 'fires' caused when executives would get involved. This degraded my trust/faith in leadership and painted a bleak outlook for my future with Aurea. Culture is non-existent, save for the culture you create in Slack channels or Skype. No 401(k), no benefits. Because everything is process-driven, sometimes there is unnecessary red tape for getting simple tasks done.