Coinbase

Coinbase is a fast-paced environment with a healthy engineering culture that offers the opportunity to work on industry-leading products used by millions of customers.

The company offers good benefits and has transitioned well to a remote-first culture during COVID. Despite leadership problems, the company is doing well due to its strong market position.

Coinbase suffers from a lack of competent leadership. The most notable example of this is Brian Armstrong's recent actions in response to an employee walkout, as he refused to make a simple statement supporting Black Lives Matter, like most other companies were doing at the time.

Instead of learning from the situation and listening to employees, he publicly asked those who disagreed to leave and banned open discussion from the company Slack and AMAs. This was an extreme and unnecessary step that caused high stress and conflict within the company in the midst of a pandemic. Worse, it alienated minority employees and actively undermined belonging and inclusion work being done.

This was the largest unforced error by leadership, but not the first (see also the Chicago office and Neutrino acquisition).

Coinbase also has an unhealthy, self-described "intense" work culture. Work-life balance is poor, and burnout is common. In my experience, the people who are most successful and get promotions here are the people working long hours and weekends. If you want to have a manageable workload and a rich life outside of work, this is not the right company for you.