Huge Culture Change - Senior Lead Software Engineer Capital One Employee Review

2.0
Mar 24, 2025
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Pay is pretty good for the area and benefits are good - Highly dependent on what line of business you work in but some can be ok with good people, but others like Financial Services (FS) are terrible. Avoid at all costs - Work life balance can be pretty good but depends on your manager; I've had some good and some really bad

Cons

- Depends on manager, but A LOT of micromanaging - If you have issues with a co-worker or manager and talk to HR they likely won't do anything - 2x per year reviews process with forced below strong distribution (as high as 20%) resulting in performance plan which usually results in being let go - Review process focuses too much on extra curricular activities and not actually software engineering work and more about who you know - Very difficult to get promoted after the Lead (manager) level - Forced return to office even when team is not in same location - Meeting heavy culture with too many town halls, all hands, etc. - A lot of strong personalities who interrupt and talk over others - Many Capital One specific abstractions over open source tools so you don't actually get experience working with industry standard tools - Many re-orgs so you may end up with a new manager often - Very unorganized - Leadership and product take their time making decisions and go back and forth between decisions but expect developers to be done yesterday

Explore other reviews about Capital One

5.0
Jul 4, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Culture, WLB, Free Stuff, Building

Cons

Slow work environment, parking situation

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.

5
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All