Carne Por la Machina - Principal Associate Software Engineer Capital One Employee Review

2.0
Oct 23, 2024
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Strong pay and benefits. If you're the peg that fits the hole, you'll do well.

Cons

Interviewee TLDR: * Know what tech stack your team is working on. Ensure it's what they're actually using/maintaining, rather than roadmaps. Will you be happy if you're maintaining that? * (If you value in-office) Know *where* your peers are. --- I was hired for a "Backend Software Engineer" position, 100% of which just say you need experience in 'Java, Python, Go, or similar'. Despite making it very clear I have 0, 10, and 1 years experience in those languages (respectively), I was put onto a team that managed a Java application where they were maybe moving to Go. Instead of being able to work at a senior level, instead I'm just learning Java (the easy part), the Java ecosystem of packages/libraries/tooling (a bit harder), and trying to read and understand the application which was developed over years, some by contractors/interns (this is where experience in a language is actually useful). I was eventually driven out for, among other things, that I wasn't providing "PA-level contributions" to a language I just started using 5 months ago. The worst part for me was that I never worked with anyone in the physical space. COF has several floors in a Chicago Loop building, but none of my peers worked there. I started remote, but then they had a return-to-office initiative several months ago, which was a cruel joke for me as I would go in, and work alone, surrounded by people. Internal tooling has a bit of a learning curve. The documentation for it is 50-50 good or out-of-date and thus misleading. The internal GitHub is pretty open, plus Slack, so you can usually find examples. In the past few years there were many announcements of so and so VP coming in from Amazon, so I think they're buying-in whole heartedly to that, for better or worse.

Explore other reviews about Capital One

5.0
Jun 12, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Culture is amazing and work life balance

Cons

Performance management is very intense

2.0
Jul 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Salary, benefits, mobility for internal transfers

Cons

I have been a part of Capital One for more than 20 years, most of my career. It was an exciting growth culture in the early years. Our team culture was very strong. People looked out for each other and worked toward a collective good. Around 2019 a shift began in leadership. Politics became more important and forced distribution, stack ranking, and performance management targets became more prevalent. When the pandemic hit, it broke the strong in person culture of this company. Many left for the lure of FAANG and other companies offering remote work for promotion and higher pay. It was a chance to jump the line and come back later. In the meantime COF hired people who tired of the relentless pace of Amazon, Google, and other tech companies. We also hired in big bank culture of JPM Chase and Goldman. This has resulted in a toxic, political, cutthroat culture with constant reorgs. I’m planning to leave this organization in the next 12 months. It is sad what it has become. I know tenured leaders, great people who look out for others and have helped me succeed over the years, who are miserable here. DFS colleagues from the acquisition are leaving in droves.

3
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