Bottom 10% of worst places to work - Principal Associate Software Engineer Capital One Employee Review

1.0
Sep 19, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Nice people Pay is decent but not worth the headache Pays for AWS certs Free O'reilly subscription

Cons

Stack ranking encourages backstabbing between coworkers. Management is forced to play favorites and hire people as PIP fodder to keep the employees they'd like to keep Constant reorgs. You join a team under one manager and a couple months later you have a completely new manager. They will PIP you and later try to constantly rehire you as a contractor for less pay/benefits Lots of on-call makes for poor WLB requiring you to work weekends and late nights. Quarterly failover exercises which are done after hours so I hope you don't like sleeping. Generous severance but due to their incompetence they will miscalculate and once you think you are done with them they will come knocking on your door

Explore other reviews about Capital One

5.0
May 11, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Most advance tech stack. Cutting edge research

Cons

Performance management and feedback based system drives politics. Senior management usually works towards saving their own a** especially in legacy orgs

1.0
Jun 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay can be decent compared to GovCon. Some people are a pleasure to work with. Other non-pay related incentives.

Cons

Never heard more nonsensical topics during meetings; people sharing their sexual preferences, flaunting overly dramatic personal lifestyle decisions, diversity to the point of failure, etc. Hearing the term "white guilt" in a professional setting was, well, pretty unprofessional. Stack ranking for performance reviews is a mess. Someone has to have an "F" regardless of their performance because that is what their line of business is allotted. Be prepared to be held responsible for actions any Sr Leadership would just sweep under the rug under their own circumstances. If a manager doesn't like you, regardless of your productivity, you're toast unless you're able to find another LoB to support. HR / AR are just a check in the box and will most likely point you from one to the other and back again without resolving any issues. You'll find yourself curious as to what leadership does as they continue to scrape managerial responsibilities from their plate, to yours. Last but certainly not least; you may find yourself working hard on a project; nights and weekends, just in case that work life balance is feeling a little too perfect. Fret not, someone will surely assist in taking credit for the hard work you've put in. I'm sure none of these things will happen to you, though. Best of luck!

5
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