I wasn't going to write this but seeing the rash of forced reviews, I don't think that readers are getting an honest picture of what's really going on which is what this site is supposed to be all about. I also got upset reading one review where they thought the "disgruntled people on Glassdoor didn't work hard enough or didn't realize how good they had it." That's absolute bull to be quite frank. Frustration permeates across teams and tenure. People who have been here 10+ years are just as shocked and hurt by the current environment as new hires. Employees across the board work really hard but eventually having to give 110% to only get 75% of the way is exhausting and you're tired of having to fight to make things bearable so you get jaded but what are you going to do because this is Charleston and there are only so many employers? A larger city or cheaper cost of living and you would have been gone way sooner.
NOTICE THE MAY TIMESTAMP ON THE MOST RECENT POSITIVE REVIEWS!!! Also notice the upper management and even executive level titles associated with the reviews. These came after leadership explicitly told employees that Glassdoor rankings were low and asked that we write positive reviews. This is a classic example of Blackbaud trying to create a PR spin and sweep things under the rug rather than owning up and genuinely better themselves. I would refer to "Beneath the shiny exterior" from May 11, 2019 and "Headed in the wrong direction" from May 10, 2019 as accurate examples of the company's trend over the past 2 years.
So the cons:
(1) Pay is way below market value: It's been leadership's 2 year strategy to create abnormally painful changes in a purposefully abrupt manner. These lead to large exoduses of top performers across all departments causing an expensive brain drain – support, engineering, success, product management, sales, professional services. That does open room up for growth for some (which some reviews mention). But what those reviews don't mention is this allows Blackbaud to pay those incoming persons way less (like 10-40k less) than exiting persons. What does that do? It puts you at a lower negotiating point for the rest of your tenure which in turn lowers the overall average salary of the position which just perpetuates the whole cycle.
(2) Annual layoffs: yes, layoffs are an expected part of business. But they're not meant to be the "Easy" button yet that's exactly how it's treated here. Large layoffs seem to come out of nowhere. Do it once; okay I get it. But do it 4 times in 6 years AND try to mask it internally? (about 120 in 2019, about 55 in 2017, about 150 in 2015, about 150 in 2013). Nearly 7% each time. Now either leadership is that blind to repeatedly making poor decisions or purposefully makes decisions knowing they'll have to lay people off but hide the truth through deflection and lies.
(3) Toxic upper management and executive leadership: your teammates are great. Your direct managers are great. But this is a good ole boys club and only promotes "Yes" men/women up. So good luck changing things because if you want change, it's unlikely you're in with the right people to get promoted. Good leaders have gotten pushed out literally just because they had a valid disagreement with a member of the ELT, a member who repeatedly has their bad decisions rewarded with MORE responsibility.
(4) All marketing, no walk: we talk a great talk about doing good and bringing heart, but those don't align with the actual decisions that get made which are about becoming a "billion dollar company."
(5) Legacy products that aren't being updated fast enough to stop customers from hemorrhaging. Salesforce and other startups are eating us up but Blackbaud continues to yell "We're the best, we're the biggest, it's impossible for us to fail." This is bad for sales trying to sell a dream that is years away from being realized, bad for engineers who are pressured to build things at a pace that promotes bugs over quality, bad for support who bears the brunt of having to hear customer frustrations about having paid for a product that can do X in the old database view but not in the shiny new webview they were sold, bad for product managers who are strapped by understaffed teams, bad for professional services who are so backed up that they have to refund clients for months of delayed work, bad for customer success who can't give the customers any good news.
Even with all this, leadership won't be worried until their credit card is declined at Halls. This place is toxic and I'd run far, far away until the executive leadership changes.
