Block

Most people I work with are wonderful: good collaboration, willing to spend time helping each other, and genuinely care about the mission of economic empowerment. The company has good compensation, especially for being remote-friendly. They also nail being "remote first" in terms of how meetings are set up, async collaboration standards, regular team gatherings, and more.

Unfortunately, the last couple of years have featured big layoffs and aggressive performance management, which has heavily targeted ICs while leaving top leadership untouched. Culture has gone downhill and is increasingly feeling political and toxic, with teams fighting over scope.

The company is going all in on AI. All engineers are expected to use the tools constantly, and their AI token usage and PR counts are being tracked in dashboards. The most unfortunate part is that in the frenzy of chasing AI trends, leadership has completely lost touch with what customers and small business users want and need.