Capital One reviews

-Every employee is stack-ranked, with ~5-10% of people getting punished with half bonuses, half raises, and being put on a PIP (fast track to being let go) each year. HR glides over all this when you join, but the fear of this by itself changes a lot of behaviors and internal politics. For example, everyone is obsessed with working on projects that look good when reported to higher-ups, sometimes at the cost of doing what they think really should be done. Perception is everything at Capital One, even if it is not the only place like this in the job market -Only two weeks’ vacation when you join (and it gets prorated) -No stock grants in most cases unless you’re a director+, very unusual for a self-proclaimed tech company -The salaries look high at each title, but there’s down-leveling and title deflation, so set your expectations conservatively. At an IC level, you are told you could get promoted at any time to encourage you to work harder for free (they will not remind you there’s a cap on promotions each cycle until you don’t get the promotion) -No more Excel, everyone uses Google Sheets now -Personal email is blocked on work computers, and you’ll be doing two-factor authentication at least half a dozen times a day -Contractors and fresh college grads constantly joining and leaving teams, requiring a lot of training, explaining, and finding replacements. These less efficient newbies are often paid close to what much more experienced/FT hires make -A culture of forced optimism (even printed on shirts and mugs) where instead of saying there’s a problem or a weakness, everyone says you have an “opportunity” 😀 -Pay is not competitive in NY or SF -Constant mandatory training courses (the acronym is CBT, and the joke writes itself if you look it up) and reminders from your VP that your department looks bad if anyone is late completing the courses -Extremely hierarchical culture — be prepared to be discouraged from initiating a 1:1 meeting with anyone more than a bit higher than you in title/scope -You cannot work remotely from anywhere outside the US even during COVID (most places will only ban a few countries) -Before COVID working from home was heavily discouraged though office crowding was an issue

They don’t live the values