Square reviews

Cons: • Leadership and company culture don’t always align with the values they promote. For example: • Empathy: Some interactions during the my time here lacked basic engagement and respect, which felt at odds with the company’s commitment to this value. • Transparency: It was evident the position had already been filled before my interview, but this was not communicated. This lack of openness diminished trust in the process. • Innovation: Suggestions for thinking outside the box during a conversation were dismissed outright, which seemed contradictory to Square/Block’s emphasis on creativity. • Respect for colleagues and fostering an inclusive, empathetic environment is foundational to the company’s mission but was not consistently demonstrated during my interactions. • Decision-making within teams appears rigid and less open to innovative ideas, which contradicts Square/Block’s emphasis on creativity.

Square’s creative marketing team suffers from a severe lack of genuine leadership, exacerbating confusion and undermining productivity. Despite having individuals designated as core leaders, these figures fail to effectively guide the team. Some have remained in their positions since the company's inception, while others were recruited from prominent companies like Meta, yet they lack the necessary leadership skills. The Creative Core lead, in particular, lacks business acumen and managerial abilities, prioritizing personal creative endeavors over setting clear goals and strategies for the team. This has led to a pattern of over-hiring, driven more by a desire to retain headcount than by actual workload demands, resulting in underutilized staff and unnecessary expenditures. Furthermore, the failure to articulate team objectives has created ambiguity and uncertainty among team members, hindering their ability to perform effectively. The situation is compounded by the hiring of incompetent individuals, worsening team inefficiency and performance. Despite efforts by employees to raise concerns about these issues, feedback is often disregarded, and dissenters are gaslighted into silence, perpetuating a cycle of stagnation and frustration. The core leadership team under the Creative Core lead also fails to inspire confidence, with some members showing favoritism and lacking accountability. Adding to the dysfunction, the recently hired operations lead lacks essential skills and prefers project management tasks over operational responsibilities, relying on AI applications to compensate for their shortcomings in interpersonal communication. This contributes to a toxic work environment marked by low morale, as employees are pitted against each other and trust erodes. Despite these glaring issues, there appears to be a lack of awareness or action from higher management, exemplified by Jack Dorsey's apparent obliviousness to the toxic workplace culture festering within the company. Without decisive intervention and meaningful change, the company risks further deterioration of its workforce and overall performance.