Adyen

Good pay, lots of room to grow, cool tech, very welcoming and international colleagues. Awesome offices as well.

The culture at Adyen was great pre-COVID and adapted well during the pandemic, but over the past year and a half, there have been noticeable changes. Ever since COVID ended, there has been a gradual shift towards micromanagement and excessive control.

More than half of the company's workforce was hired during the pandemic, a period when the company was thriving. During that time, leadership delivered numerous speeches praising everyone for their dedication in overcoming challenges, emphasizing the importance of flexibility, and promoting trust in one another to get the job done, regardless of where we were working.

Yet, as soon as COVID disappeared, this sentiment vanished. Mandatory in-office days and rigid bureaucratic rules were implemented without consideration for individual circumstances. The experience at Adyen transformed from feeling like you were part of a cool community building something amazing to feeling like you were a cog in a machine that didn't care about you at all.

"You've got this" has turned into "fall in line". Both the people and tech are unique at this company, and it's a shame to see the culture on a forced downward spiral. The top-level management's attitude is my way or the highway, and I suspect a lot of us will choose the highway.

Stop trying to fix what isn't broken. Stop clinging tooth and nail to your management principles instead of treating employees as people.