Pros: - Almost everyone is pretty smart. - A bunch of nice people, except for those who really aren't. - Good experience with FinTech. - Decent salary.

Cons: Politics can get extremely nasty if you don't stay out of the way. They don't care about the hiring laws; they simply pay off any lawsuits resulting from bad treatment. The platform is relatively old technology. Working there won't be as good for your technical development as other places, unless you're involved with the architecture.

Pros: - A lot of freedom in what you want to work on. - Exchange programs with offices abroad. - Great people and atmosphere. - No corporate working hours; a "get your work done" attitude.

Cons: - Freedom might be daunting for people who need to be told what to do. - Due to compliance and security, it is difficult to get cutting-edge tech into the codebase.

Pros: In the Netherlands, the base salary is for sure above average, and if you were lucky, in 2021, they had big salary increases. Therefore, I was pretty happy with my salary. It was not the reason I left. The office location is close to the train station and it has many perks, like coffee and sweets in the morning, and lunch. Projects can be quite challenging, and it is rare that you don't learn anything. Technically speaking, you can grow there. A bunch of extra activities (parties, events) that are nice for extra socializing. Work-life balance is pretty good; they do not ask for overtime.

Cons: Even though when I left, I felt that overall after 2 years of being there, I grew a lot both as a person and as a developer, I would not recommend this company to anyone, especially to a woman. Unfortunately, Adyen is one of those companies that on paper care about diversity and feminism, but in reality, they only care about the numbers; they pretend they care. They would invite you to events or give you opportunities to show up as a woman just to be there and to show that Adyen hires women, but they do not give you a chance to be involved in the big conversation. This is just for show. This happened to me, not only once. I was asked twice to lower my standards for candidates that were women so that we could hire more, even though they did not technically match our expectations and they had plenty of work experience. They care about hiring more women, but then they don't give them guidance and opportunities to grow and participate in discussions. Career advancements are not transparent at all, and that makes promotions very unbalanced. Basically, if your manager likes you or for some reason you heard about a promotion from other colleagues, you can apply for one. Promotions can be also based on potential rather than experience or previous outcomes, such that the loudest people in the room are always getting promoted, even though their impact on the team is not necessarily the greatest. I cannot say I saw this happening a lot; there were people that deserved being in their positions, but I also noticed cases where this happened, especially for management positions. Speaking of management, it lacks a lot. They barely give guidance, neither personal nor technical, as many managers are not technical at all, and this obviously creates an unbalanced environment where people do not have many opportunities to speak. Projects get done because usually people are capable and they somehow manage to get things done, even though collaboration is a pain sometimes, especially with other teams. Obviously, this can be facilitated with proper management. I also noticed a tendency where management gets influenced by product a lot. Product people come with big requests that most of the time require more people and time. Managers are not capable of counterbalancing this, and there were cases where developers complained that expectations are unrealistic. After the pandemic, they want people to be more in the office, which to be honest translates to being in the office almost 100%. Even if you may have flexibility, the fact that the majority of people are in the office makes it hard to collaborate. People do not write down what they discuss in the office, so if you want to be involved and up-to-date, you have to be there. Same for Zoom meetings. If you are the only one from home, it is really hard to keep up with the room. For me, being in the office was very challenging most of the time. They would play music at the cafeteria bar, which was very close to our desks. People are extremely loud (even with noise-canceling headphones, sometimes you can hear them); most of them do not care about using headphones during calls; their Zoom meetings are on speaker, which makes the office twice as loud as it should be. I get that an office should be interactive. But there are small things that can be done to make it more inclusive. Some people do not like being constantly interrupted; some are more introverted; some like to talk a lot. Creating designated spaces where these things can happen separately would be a solution. And obviously, people should make a small effort and be more considerate. While I can accept that the office will never be quiet, the loud people can also try not to shout all the time and give me some space. It’s all about balance. Unfortunately, when I told them I just cannot work in the office all the time and we need to make adjustments to make it work for everyone, they put the blame on me, like it's my fault I am different. And last but not least, the culture aspect can be toxic. I feel that the company wants you to be part of a cult or something. From the day I joined, I kept hearing messages about how great the company is, and it was tiring, to be honest. Any feedback is taken as a big complaint; basically, if you say a thing can be improved, people shout back at you that the company is perfect and you have high expectations. As a critical-thinking person, I believe that providing feedback from time to time is essential in making a place better and more inclusive to people. The positive aspect of all of this is that now I know what to expect from a company and I know what my boundaries are. For a long time, I thought I was the problem and I should ignore everything, but being in a healthier environment now, I realized it was not my fault, and accepting toxic things is not normal.