Block

Square engineers are smart, motivated, and flexible.

We get to work with a variety of technologies (for those who want to, at least), and there are always new things going on (technologically, business-wise, geographically).

Square is innovating in a variety of ways to make things easier for our customers.

It is a collaborative environment, so it might be a better fit if you enjoy working closely with other people than if you prefer to sequester yourself with a problem and solve it on your own.

Although the general management and prioritization situation has gotten better with a few really good executive hires, there are still things which fall through the cracks given shifting priorities (which, up to a point, is desirable), re-orgs, and an emphasis on building new things. Keeping existing things running does happen, but isn't planned for by management in the same way.

Focus on the tier of management between the executives and the individual contributors. Many of these people are promoted from individual contributor roles (at least in engineering), which is not a problem. However, do focus on what these frontline managers need to be successful, including:

• Skills
• Organizational support
• Good ways of making decisions with each other and higher-ups, etc.

Attract and cultivate managers who can do this job as well as we do for individual contributor and executive roles.