Adyen

Great compensation package. For NL: above the average base salary, health care allowance, in-office canteen with great free lunch, a fixed allowance to spend as you wish on your well-being, equity depending on tenure/performance, Friday drinks, coffee bars, etc.

Still very flexible on WFH policy, even now that the mindset is “office first”.

Global product, global impact of your work.

Most development teams still struggle in a very convoluted and outdated tech environment.

If you are lucky and your manager likes you, you could work with some cool stuff that is not plain Java + SQL. This is the third review that I write in my years working for Adyen. Funny that this point constantly appears since the first review.

I am writing this while my IDE is stuck for the third day in a row, due to some random problem that I have zero motivation to investigate and solve. Because I am tired. Because I don’t want to do that anymore. I just want to do my job without much friction, maybe that’s a reasonable wish in a company that wants to increase productivity without increasing headcount.

I joined a culture-obsessed company, with purpose and meaning, human-centred. That’s what kept me there for so long.

What I see, now, is a constant pursuit of more productivity focusing on filling the pockets of shareholders without thinking about the consequences that has on people’s lives. Nobody mentions the formula anymore. At least, not in an inspiring and motivating manner, but rather to justify uncalibrated opinions that can be used generically at their convenience. Or just to gaslight individuals, if you prefer that term. People are just getting sick. Adyen doesn't care about people anymore. They care about resources, and even the terminology reflects that if you think about “headcount” or “Human Resources” - two outdated terms still being used in this modern fintech.

Talking about career at Adyen is so difficult. They are trying to create career frameworks across different departments, but the return is always void.

• “This is not a check list for promotion”
• “Not an automatic promotion based on tenure”
• “You own your career”

Managers across the org have very different views of what success looks like. There is absolutely zero data-driven performance culture for most individual contributors. Period.

Promotions are just biased, and it helps if you are a very loud (should I say vocal instead?), male, and wear sneakers of questionable taste. Now, if you are not that cool, you can expect all the friction that underrepresented groups already face in regular society: prepare to have your work constantly scrutinized, your mistakes will be amplified and your achievements minimized by those of the dominant class. If I were a woman or a queer person of color looking for a safe place to work, I would avoid joining Adyen.

Lastly, your experience as a developer at Adyen is not very valuable in the market in general. You become unfit for the job market after some time. Think about all the cloud tools and technologies that companies out there are abusing but you don’t find at Adyen. Tip: study them while your IDE doesn’t work.

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