Capital One

• Good benefits.
• Good work-life balance.

Too many useless meetings, when time can be spent on actual planning & development.

Performance management. STACK RANKING is toxic. They compare you to other associates and place you in buckets: below strong, strong, above strong. You have no incentive to help out your fellow associates. If you end up in below strong, it's time to find a new job because you will most likely be fired. If you ever do end up in "below strong", don't beat yourself up; it's just the company (is really stupid), and it's probably not you. I ended up there, and now I am at this amazing company who actually values me and pays me more.

Bad management. Managers are responsible for bringing work to your team. If your manager is bad, you might get screwed over and you may end up as "below strong" even if you do your work properly. I ended up with a manager who told me throughout the year (during 1 on 1s) that I had been doing good and then dropped the bomb during performance reviews with a "below strong" rating. Basically, if you are surprised by your rating during performance reviews, the manager did not do his/her job properly. Performance ratings should not come as a surprise to anyone.

High expectations, not enough compensation to back those expectations. As a "senior associate" you are expected to do many things including doing some managerial stuff. I came into the role assuming that as a senior associate software engineer, I'd be roped into challenging projects and design meetings, etc. However, I was expected to do some of the manager's or principal associate's work for them, like bringing in projects to the team. Basically, 95K was my compensation and that is not close to enough in this day and age with #Justinflation to do this kind of advanced work. Basically, these role names are very ambiguous.

It's a bank, not a software company, no matter how much these guys market it as so. You get the same politics (performance reviews - bump people down so they can promote others) and bureaucracy as banks. They just have these really cool events that software companies also do. However, don't be mistaken; IT IS A BANK. If you are a software engineer, do not work at a bank.

Get better. You lose lots of talent due to your performance management. Fix your system and hire better managers who understand human value.