Capital One

Some of my co-workers are competent, and I enjoy socializing with them. I don't dislike showing up to the office because of it.

Wow, where do I begin?

In the last few months, entire divisions of the company have been laid off. My office is going to be shut down tomorrow, and this was all planned while our VPs kept telling us with a straight face that they were committed to tech and our location.

These are some of the most two-faced people I have ever met, and it's completely clear to me that Capital One doesn't really consider itself as a tech company.

A very large majority of the programmers in this company are very bad. Job titles like "senior software engineer" and "master software engineer" are given to people who can't code, communicate, or collaborate in any way at all.

At the same time, I get pushback from my leadership team, saying that promotions need to be based on merit and accomplishments. I point directly to engineers both within my LOB and across the company who have been promoted and ask what I'm lacking that they have. I never receive an answer.

This company's stupid desire to have "product owners" who oversee one single feature in a project is baffling. My product owners are all on the East Coast, and we only interact with them on Slack and over the phone.

It really feels like a company that hired too many B-players years ago, who continued to hire the bottom of the barrel with C- and D-level employees, and have no desire to actually do any real, good work.

Don't come to Capital One if you're looking to learn or grow. If you want to circlejerk all day to acting corporate, you'll feel right at home.

Read a book or two on management.