Saying you're a tech company doesn't make you one - Senior Software Engineer Capital One Employee Review

2.0
28 Feb 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Bikes in silly colors, great cafeterias, competitive (not extravagant) pay, as much Kool-Aid as you can possibly chug

Cons

The performance management system is like something out of the Middle Ages, based on a forced distribution at the team level---meaning if you have four people on your team, one of you is going to get a bad rating. This does wonderful things for team cohesion and makes people optimize for very strange things. If you are a software developer, expect to get stuck in an on-call rotation at least once a month and doing a LOT of devops work even if you weren't hired as a devops engineer. Toward the end of my time there, 90% of the work my team did was related to scrambling to comply with some new enterprise-wide mandate (fix X, switch to using Y, etc.). In the end we had almost no time left to build our product. The product owners and tech leads are really out of touch; a lot of them have no technical background. Also, the decision to abolish assigned seating and move to "everyone scramble for a seat every day" (excuse me... "Flex Seating"! Yay!) is a horrible decision. It makes the day so stressful to never have any idea whether you will be able to find a decent seat or not, and yet despite the overcrowding many teams do not allow for regular remote work.

Explore other reviews about Capital One

5.0
10 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great WLB and good environment

Cons

Not much room to learn new tech

1.0
1 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pay can be decent compared to GovCon. Some people are a pleasure to work with. Other non-pay related incentives.

Cons

Never heard more nonsensical topics during meetings; people sharing their sexual preferences, flaunting overly dramatic personal lifestyle decisions, diversity to the point of failure, etc. Hearing the term "white guilt" in a professional setting was, well, pretty unprofessional. Stack ranking for performance reviews is a mess. Someone has to have an "F" regardless of their performance because that is what their line of business is allotted. Be prepared to be held responsible for actions any Sr Leadership would just sweep under the rug under their own circumstances. If a manager doesn't like you, regardless of your productivity, you're toast unless you're able to find another LoB to support. HR / AR are just a check in the box and will most likely point you from one to the other and back again without resolving any issues. You'll find yourself curious as to what leadership does as they continue to scrape managerial responsibilities from their plate, to yours. Last but certainly not least; you may find yourself working hard on a project; nights and weekends, just in case that work life balance is feeling a little too perfect. Fret not, someone will surely assist in taking credit for the hard work you've put in. I'm sure none of these things will happen to you, though. Best of luck!

4
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All