Holy moly. I've been through an acquisition, and it was the complete opposite experience. But, I have a bad feeling this post is completely right and this is typical. Must really feel terrible. I'm glad this person shared, and I hope they don't get into any kind of trouble over it.
I have been through five as an employee of the acquired company.
My advice is to polish up your resume and dig your job search network out of the mothballs the instant you catch a whiff of one. If you're lucky, you will have approximately one year to find safe harbor before the storm hits.
I always ask leading questions about ownership structure and acquisitions at interviews now.
Would you mind sharing some examples of good questions to ask in an interview? It seems particularly hard to evaluate companies as an interviewee when they're trying to be secretive.
I don't know about good questions, but here's one that I ask.
"I have been through a few acquisitions, and all of them ended badly for me. Can you tell me a bit about the ownership structure of your company and their exit strategy?"
You have to watch their facial expression as you ask it, as they will almost certainly tell you that the current owners have no plans to sell that they are aware of. (Your interviewers probably won't include any owner required for a majority bloc.) But they also might tell you some names, and you can check for yourself after the interview what generally happens to their peon-level employees.
