software engineer

senior software engineer

account executive

account manager

implementation consultant

Vertafore

Vertafore consists of a number of products designed to meet the needs of the insurance industry. Most of these products were acquired by buying up smaller close-knit companies that meet the needs various niche insurance markets.

Over the last few years the company has had considerable trouble identifying how to consolidate these assets. As a result, they have made a number of missteps. Each misstep or change in direction they make results in job losses at the various locations. Typically, these are good skilled people that are no longer needed in their current roles and are simply cast aside. This leaves the remaining employees feeling uneasy about their futures.

All decisions and processes are driven out of Bothell, WA. While working in Bothell is no guarantee of job security, it appears that working at any other location is more likely to result in your eventual elimination during the next priority shift.

Weak attempts have been made to manage employee satisfaction concerns, but there has been little cause to celebrate. Additionally, the review process is arbitrary and seems to be geared around avoiding things like merit increases or bonus payouts wherever possible. A glowing mid-year review where merit increases are not discussed is likely to be followed up with a less glowing or negative year-end review when it comes time to discuss money. Specifics are not given for low marks leaving the employee to remain confused about the process and how to improve.

Pros:
- Work-life balance is pretty good.
- Insurance is decent.
- I like the people on my team.
- My managers have historically been very relaxed.
- The new office in Denver is very nice.

Cons:
- Most of my time at Vertafore is spend waiting for people to do their jobs so I can do mine. 
- Pay for lower level developers is very low for the area. (usually sub $70k).
- High turnover. Devs and middle management have been leaving at a rate of 1 per week for the last several months. This has been pretty bad for morale.
- Management doesn't communicate well, and when they do they contradict themselves. It can be hard to get information you need to do your job.
- Tech stack is very outdated and attempts to modernize have been shut down by management. This makes it a little harder to build a relevant skill set as a newer dev. Note that this will be different depending on which product you work on.
- Most entry level devs do not have degrees, most are graduates from coding bootcamps. There's nothing wrong with coding bootcamps and nothing wrong with the devs that come out of them, but a 3 month course will never teach you as much as a 4 year degree. I guess this could be a pro or con depending on who you are.

Vertafore has gone through many changes over the past 18 years; I started in support of our Y2K preparations 1999/2000. 
At the time I was working with our customers as they made the transition into the new century: the Company became known as AMS, a small local software company, selling and supporting Insurance Automation Software to our small to medium Insurance agencies across the United States. We were on the move up. 
Over the years we were acquired several times, growing into the company Vertafore, Inc. with the last acquisition and installation of the current CEO it became clear that Verterfore, Inc would be moved to the Denver Colorado area. While painful to watch and knowing that change was in the air, I decided that I would take the opportunity to retire rather than make a move with the company. Seventeen years and I was ready for a change.

Vertafore was a fun place to work when I started. I got to fly first-class to Seattle for on-the-job training (was there a week). The company creates and manages Agency Processing Systems for all size of independent insurance agencies. I handled back-end B.A. support for their flagship system, Sagitta, which is in use by enterprise- and mid-sized agencies.

My TM was a bit of a joke, acting like a 10-year old child, constantly pulling pranks and playing with all manner of toys around us, interrupting our workday all the time. My co-workers were cool, always on-hand for a quick question or to help with a difficult issue. This job was IT for business analyst work, and I loved the technicality of the position.

I was laid off 15 months into my time with the company, even though two other people had been there less time and should have been let go before I was.

Memories of this company are bittersweet due to being let go, but overall, if you can avoid layoffs, it is a great place to work. Just don't expect perks.

I loved my direct manager and many of my coworkers, but it seemed that many of the executive, VP, and director level individuals either had no real insight as to what was going on lower down the food chain or didn't care. My department in particular had no sense of direction but bringing that up and asking for clarification wasn't appreciated. Some departments I know had great room for growth and advancement and collaboration, but not all. There was also a massive lack of collaboration between departments and even teams within the same department despite having a project management platform in place (which was frankly not user friendly and extremely overwhelming). 

Overall, the people were extremely nice (mostly) and the company culture is great, but there are some big issues.

This company is not what they advertise. They will tell you the job is about the customers, which is true, but they will also tell you this is not a call center. This could not be less true. You will be expected to be on the phone all day. This is fine if you are expecting a call center, but when they advertise that this is not their focus it is deceiving. There is little room for improvement, you will work short handed frequently, and you will get the short straw as the new employee. Think you're part of a team? You're part of a group of cutthroat individuals that work in the same proximity, all out for themselves with very little management. Managers are afraid to get their hands dirty, which means employees are on their own. You don't need a babysitter, but having someone sit back and quietly observe without intervention takes it's toll.

The workplace is new and beautiful but that is all just a facade. 

Upper management does not allow autonomy, very controlling over all decisions (major and minor) therefore putting middle management in a micromanaging position as opposed to letting them do the job they were hired to do. They promise growth but then lay off higher paid employees with the excuse of poor performance but never give a review stating poor performance - seems unethical. Only to hire lower paid, lower skilled employees showing a zero change in employee numbers. 

Executives are only worried about the bottom financial line and how they appear on paper to investors, not the service they should be providing customers. The pay for new, lower skilled employees is below market value for the work being required, justified by promising amenities like weekly Happy Hours. 

Don't fall for the bait and switch.

What I like the most:  Flex PTO - You are allowed 5-6 weeks of Flex PTO that you can actually use.  You also get 12-13 paid holidays.  Vertafore will also occasionally offer Refresh days which are paid days off.  The other benefits are typical of a large employer.

Also good:  The culture.  It is very inclusive and they try to make work fun as well as they can.

What I don't like:  They are severely short-staffed so the work for the people who are there is abundant and is too much to handle.  You may find that you aren't able to enjoy your time off when you take it because in the back of your mind you know you will return to a nightmare.  They also currently don't have a very good training program, although they are really trying.  The biggest problem is the transition from all the turnover.  It's very difficult to have adequate training if the people who knew anything have moved on.   

AT&T can be a really fun place to work. It is easy, however, to get burnt out. The days can be long and crazy, and the management isn't always the best. 

  There are a lot of places to go in the company, but it can be very difficult to figure out what your options are, or what the best fit is for you. 

  Management most of the time is amazing, but as this company is trying to change and is focused on efficiency, management is often swapped out. 

  The toughest part of the job was working with a lack of moral. When things got really tough, there wasn't a lot of support for the teams. 
  
  I leaned a lot about training people and leading teams. I also learned a lot about leading meetings and developing content. There was a lot f opportunity to work on projects, and that made things feel new and fun.

So, regardless of what your application says you need to know for the position, understand that, like most terrible software companies, their listings are merely fronts for moving you to a legacy maintenance position that they can't hire for.  Regardless of what you're doing to start with, you will eventually be working with old terrible code.  Management, especially middle management, is deceptive and not to be trusted.  They're just a sack full of snakes biting each other and toying with the people below them.  Leadership is as leadership is everywhere, incompetent and mostly understanding of the fact that they don't have to answer to anyone.

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