Came in via acquisition. Have watched Coupa systematically dismantle everything that I loved about the company I came from. It typically starts with the enforcement of Coupa's antiquated development processes (they claim this is agile because they use words like sprint and user story but its 100% waterfall) and their so-called culture (which is just an internal political game - you play it or you're out).
Then comes the product integration - corners are cut and things are stitched together to make it look like everything hangs together (perception is everything at Coupa) but under the covers it's a car crash - layers of chaotic badly written code.
Then comes sales and marketing - an army of people with no idea what your product does, overselling like crazy (even though they constantly claim they're super honest and integrity is really important to them).
Then the product leadership starts to influence the roadmap - prioritizing value-less integrations in order to market 'suite synergy' in favour of much needed client features (cue LOTS of unhappy customers). The general viewpoint is that if they don't instantly understand a use case / feature, they pull it from the acquired product because it's 'too complicated'. Best in class tech starts to look like every other basic system. It makes you question why they bought it in the first place!
Then clients start to (unsurprisingly) walk away but their default position is to blame whoever they bought the company from (they have zero self awareness and the CEO scares them senseless). As the heat levels rise, they take it out more and more on their most valuable assets - the people who know the acquired product well. So then those people leave which causes ripple effects across the team.
By the time they're 18 months into the acquisition, there is nothing left of the company, the people or the technology they brought. Ultimately this shouldn't surprise anyone who has been acquired before (it's an all too familiar tale). The biggest problem at Coupa is that they think they do it differently and claim to be the opposite. Having been acquired many times in the past, I can safely say that they treat you worse than anyone else I've ever seen. Maybe it's different for people who come into the business as 'normal' hires but for the majority, it's just horrible.
