Pros
Before Thoma Bravo acquired it in 2021 and took the company private, QAD was an outlier in the tech industry. There wasn’t much employee churn and it was not uncommon to feel like you were still the new person on a team, even after working there for six or seven years. QAD offered stability, familiarity, and security. It was common knowledge that employees were underpaid, but the security, stability, and kind coworkers made the low pay a tolerable trade off . The acquisition announcement in mid 2021 did not cause the kind of anxiety it would have caused at a more modern tech company. Employees who had been there for decades had never experienced anything similar and took management’s word that this was going to be exciting and positive. Only after the deal closed and entire departments were let go, only to be reconstituted with off-shore contractors, did people start to see the writing on the wall. Remaining U.S. and European employees with drive and skill started leaving of their own accord and their positions were either left empty or filled with off-shore contractors. The software itself looked dated five or six years ago as they rolled out their new Web UI. In an effort to meet aggressive deadlines from upper management, the engineers didn’t rework the 40-year-old code to the extent it should have been rewritten but instead wrapped the old code in a façade and tried to pass the package off as new. QAD is no longer what it was and as changes continue to pile up as the months pass, I would not recommend it as a stable place of employment for anyone considering a full-time job.
Cons
Because the older employees remained at the company for 20+ years, there was very little opportunity for advancement. The Fast Track program was an attempt to infuse new blood, but after the recent college grads realized they would not be able to advance in the next 10 years, they'd leave for brighter opportunities. QAD had and still has managers who are not ideal for the positions they are filling. A good manager does not need to be able to do the job of the employees he manages, but if he doesn't, he needs to then actually be a good manager. Not fulfilling either of those functions leads to unhappy employees.
