account executive

customer success manager

senior software engineer

customer service representative

software engineer

Blackbaud

At one time, Blackbaud was a technology leader. Around 2000, it went public and remained a leader, but focused on consulting instead of improving its core Microsoft client-server based products. 

In the mid 2000's its 3rd CEO focused on acquisitions and Wall Street, again ignoring the people and technologies that made this company strong. He led the acquisition of Blackbaud's 2 major competitors, giving Blackbaud a lot of incompatible software technologies and products which do not work well together, creating many virtually insurmountable (and non-funded) customer/product support, product development and integration issues. His senior management team had little/no technological knowledge at all, and ran the company like a manufacturing company, not a software company. The main product, RaisersEdge (still its major source of income) received no major enhancements to its now out-of-date Microsoft client-server architecture for over 10 years, and is therefore a burden to host in the new SaaS environment. Most of the senior (and knowledgeable) management team was replaced within the past 5 years, and the new mgmt team have even less experience in technology or non-profits, making it difficult for employees focused on technology or non-profits to work effectively.

Blackbaud is often on the "Most Desirable Places to Work" list, simply because management has put pressure on managers and  people to provide good reviews, etc. in order to hire people to replace its high turnover employees. Good companies shouldn't have high turn-over ...

Blackbaud has evolved from a fun software company of empowered technological visionaries into a sweatshop managed by non-techie MBA types who ignore techie advice. Company meetings have evolved from celebration parties with exciting announcements to depressing presentations about ailing sales and reduced margins with no refreshments or applause ...

I was a Customer Support Analyst. Blackbaud was (and still is) a company I was/am proud to have been a part of. Blackbaud does wonderful things for the Nonprofit world. The coworkers I had were the best I've ever had the pleasure to work with, and I highly doubt I will ever work somewhere with such an amazing group of people. It's a truly rare thing to find such an amazing team with a wonderful sense of camaraderie and support. They do a lot of fun, team-building things in the office to keep things fun, and I loved the laid-back, friendly attitude everyone had.

That said, I found the position was not a good fit for me. It's a pretty high-stress job, and the pay wasn't really enough to compensate for me. I found answering the phone to be really stressful, and while I already had a lot of customer service experience, I wasn't prepared for how much more difficult clients could be over the phone. I gave 3/5 stars for Job Security/Advancement because, while I felt pretty secure in my job, I realized the potential for advancement was VERY slim, especially if I was unwilling to move to SC. I gave 4/5 stars for Job Work/Life Balance because I found it to end up being more time-consuming than I thought... Frequently, your calls run far past your scheduled times, and so you end up not being able to leave on time at the end of the day. It made it very difficult for me to schedule any plans on weekday evenings, for fear that a call would run long and I wouldn't be able to make it.

Over all, they're the best group of people you could ever hope to work for, but the position was too much for me.

Blackbaud has great tools and software to help non profits and organizations whose missions are to make the world a better place. Unfortunately Blackbaud and its leadership team have strayed so far from the core mission and customer focus they seem to be floundering. The consistent employee layoffs, management restructuring, and revised go-to-market strategies leave employees and customers hanging out to dry while the C-Level executives talk up how great the stock price is doing and how well they have improved investor relationships.

Throughout my short tenure at Blackbaud I have witnessed hundreds of people lose their jobs, numerous benefits get cut, and organizational focus change more times than I can remember. The problems seem so simple yet the company has such complicated internal processes that they can’t seem to get out of their own way.

It’s sad that a company with so much potential to influence the market has strayed so far from putting their customers and employees first. Blackbaud is its own worst enemy at this point. 

Their focus should be on improving the customer and employee experience rather than providing a lip service as to how great they’re doing and what “investments” they’re making. 

Pros: 
.competitive pay for a call center
.clients are kind. 1 of 10 calls were neutral to nice
.full remote, meetings as well
.Remote IT support

Cons
. Management is trash, they only care about themselves looking good instead of defending their agents
. Micro Management is a thing here
. Bad treatment from US folks to LATAM folks, always being condescending and diminishing, as well as not listening to feedback or suggestions
. Training was trash, spent 2 months watching 45mins videos back to back and when got to the floor, knew about 20% of the total knowledge I had to use on my everyday cases
. You have 2hr research, which could seem like a lot at first glance, but the tools (human and digital) to solve cases are so clumsy, that you end up with 20 - 35 cases that need daily follow up and testing. You can already tell you will lack this time.
. They simply not care about you, your needs or special medical conditions. They put up a fake mask telling you they understand, but will fire you with no patronal responsibility, weaponizing your situation
. There are no improvement plans, once you struggle with something, you better do something on your own, since you are not getting proper training or help

Lots of passionate people who love being in the social good space. You can have a pretty regular relationship with certain customers and are encouraged to do frequent user research and feel the tangible impacts of what you are working on. Design system is well-documented. You can almost always keep to regular and reasonable hours with a good work life balance.

On the other hand, business decisions and priorities shift very often and are not always communicated well. Design is not always seen as a priority and growth within design is limited in terms of mentorship as you are almost always on a sprint team by yourself without other creatives. Also not a very diverse company particularly in engineering org - have been on 3 teams and worked with a total of about 4 or 5 women, all of whom were white except me, and across those teams have worked with about 3 other people of color. Quality of management really varies.

Pros:  Good if you are on a small team as your co-workers help you the most through the day.  Nice place to start out in tech or develop troubleshooting skills for a short time.

Cons:  Pay is a little lower compared to similar jobs.  If on a large team, you'll never connect with anyone and if your Team Lead is too busy you won't have anyone to rely on.  Blackbaud does at least two layoffs a year; don't expect to stay long term.  Blackbaud is also a dishonest company to their customers, where they often keep important information about solution problems.  Great example of this is Blackbaud settling with the SEC to pay 3 million over not reporting important information about the ransomware attack they had in 2020.  Loss of money like that means less money toward their workforce or towards their outdated products that they continue to promote. 

Take Away:  Work for Blackbaud if you need the experience for your career, but don't expect that you could stay there long term and plan early for your next move to a company that will reward you for the work you do.

- Everything at the company was about process.  Expect to have 3-5 'process' related meetings every week AND expect process to be a common topic at the all hands meetings.  Even small decisions - something that required one meeting at most - required months of meetings and approvals.  

- No support from management and leadership.  Ideas from the rank and file are largely ignored.  The products are a mess, full of problems that will never get fixed, and so broken that Support and Customer Success have to give away free consulting to keep customers.

- While some teams have a good culture, as a company there is none.  Company events are poorly attended (unless free food is offered).  No one puts in any effort to build company unity.  The "Social Good" angle they push is nonsense, they are a for profit company who makes money off of charitable organizations.

- Don't expect much opportunity for advancement in general, and expect it even less if you aren't in the Home Office.

Blackbaud used to be a great place to work before it went public a few years ago.  It was understood that a small number of people could be laid off in January, but it was handled with care.  In Q4 2022 and in Q1 2023 Blackbaud laid off hundreds of people.  The first round of layoffs in Q4 2022 was handled with the same care and compassion that exhibited "the Blackbaud way." The next round in Q1 2023 was a bloodbath: emails appeared in staff inboxes telling them they were being laid off and they were told to report to a Teams meeting with HR at 2 pm. Those of us who are left are mad. EXCELLENT, DEDICATED staff were let go.  We lost a huge amount of tribal knowledge. We are taking on that extra work and not complaining because no one wants to be on the chopping block when the next quarterly earnings call happens in May.

As a consultant, you spend a lot of time on the road and serving customers, but there is a group of consultants that are there for you to bounce ideas off of, ask for suggestions for restaurants/things to do in different cities, or even meet you out if you're in or close to their town.  With many people working remote, it's not too uncommon to find someone living in a city you are in for work.
  
The clients are non profits, but this doesn't mean they're all amazing.  Some clients are incredibly awesome.  Some clients are incredibly difficult.  It's just the nature of consulting.  

The pay isn't the highest, but you aren't expected to make the job your life, either.  Time outside of working hours is highly respected.  Weekends (with the exception of travel time) aren't two extra work days.  Personal achievements outside of work are celebrated at work.  The culture feels like a family, even if most of your coworkers are remote.

What I learned while at Blackbaud: 
Very good benefits and vacation time from the get go. 
Fair hours with good work life balance. 
Pay is ok, not anything special. 
Do NOT go against the grain at all, even in a professional manner with valid points. There's a good chance you'll be sent packing. Yes, depends on your manager and upward chain. In this day and age, you're supposed to be able to respectfully have differing points of view and/or suggestions but that is not what I experienced at all. And there was also some game playing and poorly disguised "reorganizing" to orchestrate a reduction of one. Very unprofessional management behavior. No warning of being on thin ice. 
A case of a couple poor managers totally skewing the overall view of a decent company.

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Account executive 5 salaries reported	$52,000 per year
Customer success manager 5 salaries reported	$85,800 per year
Senior software engineer 6 salaries reported	$137,717 per year
Customer service representative 6 salaries reported	$42,567 per year
Software engineer 5 salaries reported	$112,400 per year

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