Apologies for this jumbled recollection and rant.

I worked for a Vista-owned company for about 8 years. We were a division of a larger company spun out and sold to Vista. We eventually merged with a couple of other Vista purchases.

The initial change I remember was that everyone had to take a combo personality/IQ test, the DPAT (dynamic personality assessment test?). It looks like they have replaced that with something called a CCAT now, but I'm sure it's essentially the same thing. The results of your test were not shared with you, and IIRC we were told that the results were available only to the CEO and their executive assistant. Candidates for hire had to take this test too, and if they didn't pass we couldn't hire them; it was challenging to hire people in our area. The general feeling was that no one applying to work with us was passing the DPAT, although I wasn't personally involved in any discussions where someone who would know that (CEO and EA only, remember...) told me so.

Some time after this test - maybe a few months? - we had a large layoff. I don't know how many people it was, or how many people we had, actually. I believe the entire company had less than 2500 people, and R&D was at most a few hundred. But they brought in security guards to patrol the office for a week or two during and after the layoff. Vista wanted us to hire "HPEL"s - high potential entry level. We seemed to have layoffs every 12-18 months after that. We were always told that change was a constant, things were looking up, we don't anticipate more layoffs, did you know we are hiring!, etc.

We were paid, and not tortured or anything. But pay was always below-market, and while my memory is fuzzy on the exact sequence of events, it seemed like we were changing 401k and health providers every couple of years. All hands meetings where people complained about compensation and such would get answers like "we continually evaluate industry conditions and remain competitive in the market etc. etc. etc." Leadership was not constant, and from my position it felt like we never remained committed to anything long enough to succeed. The meme where a baby runs down a hall, encounters something alarming at the corner, and then turns and starts to run back? It felt like that most of the time.

The other thing that I thought was fishy but not surprising is that we developed business relationships with other Vista companies. We used Tibco, BigMachines, Marketo, Ping Identity, and maybe WebSense. We had training stuff from SumTotal. I don't remember there being an official policy around this - although Vista had their 'Vista Operating Procedures' playbook for acquisitions to execute - but it did seem like the invisible hand was pressing its invisible thumb on the scale somewhere.

Morale was mostly terrible. I know it wasn't just me that felt that way, but I don't know how much of it was due to Vista vs. something else about our company. I do feel like PE acquiring you means you're not successful, that they think they're going to lean you out and flip you for a profit. So I would be worried if I were at Citrix, and if my own experience and observation is relevant I would suggest dusting off resumes and at least being prepared to move.