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Nice people, good products, but confused leadership

Software Engineer
Current Employee
Has worked at Block for less than 1 year
January 5, 2022
San Francisco, California
4.0
RecommendsNeutral OutlookDoesn't Approve of CEO
Pros

People are always very nice, friendly, and helpful. As an engineer, I have a great work-life balance.

When it comes to delivering on new features, Square's tooling is a bit esoteric but usually gets the job done with minimal waiting. When it doesn't, the nice, friendly, and helpful people I just mentioned will unblock you really fast.

Cons

C-Suite leadership makes bizarre decisions (e.g., renaming to Block) that somehow promise to make them a lot of money, but don't contribute towards better products for users (e.g., Jack's obsession with crypto).

There's a mixture of new and pleasant technology, and old legacy stuff that has to continue to be supported. This would not be so bad, except there is a surprising amount of resistance if you decide not to build new things with the old legacy technology.

"Software architecture" isn't a priority for Block's microservices. So, while everything works and individual services have unit tests, creating usable APIs for cross-team boundaries is usually an afterthought that makes it a pain to ever make new connections.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
5.0
Culture and Values
5.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
5.0
Career Opportunities
4.0
Compensation and Benefits
4.0
Senior Management
3.0

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