Capital One reviews

Performance management is atrocious, outdated, and insulting. The other reviews that you read on here are not exaggerations - Capital One is FULL of employees that will "play the game" and do whatever is necessary to get to the top of the pile. It creates a toxic work environment filled with unethical employees and management, which also fosters their culture of "change for the sake of change". Senior management is always feeling a need to "make their mark" on the org, and as such demand regular sweeping changes to the way things are done. God forbid someone does a great job but doesn't consistently innovate - that's a recipe for dismissal. Additionally, hiring practices have become a circus. Capital One wants so desperately to be acknowledged by others as a "tech company" that they've adopted a number of similar practices as the real tech counterparts use. Here's the problem: People actually want to work at Facebook and Google because their products aren't boring. Those companies can get away with selecting the top 1% of candidates because they have a constant deluge of applicants. Capital One does not, so stop acting like turning down highly qualified candidates in the name of "well they had 95% percent of what we needed, but we just don't feel like coaching the next 5%". It's ridiculous and we let too many great candidates go.

Management creates a toxic workplace. The twice yearly review process discourages teamwork and kills morale by forcing managers to put 20% or more of their reports on a performance plan or terminiating them. This is no way to create a good work environment or culture. Promotions are subject to cronyism and engineers are encouraged to look out only for themselves. Valuable, high-performing engineers are not developed or promoted. With the recent Chicago lay-off announcements, morale is terrible. It seems like the Virginia offices are better places to work, but steer clear of the Chicago and Rolling Meadows locations if you are looking for a safe workplace. There is no opportunity there.