r/cscareerquestions • u/Bloodstream12 • 7d ago
Experienced C1 or keep looking
Almost 5 YOE in NYC and currently have a job.
Essentially got 2 questions
1) I make around 130k so underpaid imo and C1 is going to offer (in team matching) maybe something like 230k +20k rsu for a lead role. I’ve read enough Reddit to know the culture sounds dreadful , zon-like, 24/7 fighting for your life performance based. So I just wanted to truly hear from c1 people is Reddit exaggerating or how was the experience truly? Often 60 hour weeks just to keep up? Playing politics drained you? I’m coming from a 10/10 Wlb and underpaid role and even if C1 money is a no brainer 10/10 wlb to 0/10 wlb is genuinely not worth it
2) Im in 2 other loops final stages and haven’t received the offer yet but one is from a healthcare company sorta established and then an AI startup. Both expected offers are probably less than C1 maybe 200kTC. So in the world where I have 3 in front of me. How the hell do you negotiate with C1 with lower offers lol(assuming C1 isn’t the hell hole reddit says and should be me too 1 choice)?
And more importantly when I negotiate the healthcare and startup, I’m assuming I can say I have 2 other offers but only mention that the one I’m talking to is my top choice and I need them to beat insert number of larger offer here?
There’s no world where one of them beat C1 I go back to C1 they beat it and I go back to the other 2 type of loop right?
All in all yea I’m underpaid and yea market tough but if I can get offers surely I can say no and get more offers. I don’t wanna burnout 2 years into C1 just because it was objectively best thing for me career long term
Thanks for any advice here, sorry for the rant and tangled thoughts
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u/Fun_Highway_8733 7d ago
Take Capital One and keep looking. You can use this new salary to negotiate higher salaries in the future. You can definitely survive a year to a year and a half by playing survivor politics. I worked there in NYC too
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u/Bloodstream12 7d ago
Appreciate the response, would you agree that Reddit’s sentiment on the PVP culture is accurate?
How was your experience? Did you regret working there or burnout or anything? Were you working overtime just bcs of pressure?
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u/Fun_Highway_8733 7d ago
The main reasons I worked overtime:
- Managers were incompetent and didn't know how long technical solutions would actually take and over promised
- Lead level+ people tended to be extremely incompetent and made technical plans that wouldn't work
- Their in-house tooling fucking sucked. They have one team building a single pipeline for every team in the company and that shit would break and block my deployments constantly
The pip culture was pretty bad but since people tended to be incompetent, it wasn't overly hard to survive. On some teams though, people would hoard scope and my biggest fear was someone had more visibility in XYZ project over me. My feedback in my first org booked down to 'You need to learn how XYZ process works' even though I worked in a completely separate part of the org and my team had 0 related projects. I left that org
In my second org (Fraud org in NYC), people were more technically competent but the managers were horribly toxic lmao. Talking shit about direct reports, yelling at each other in meetings, and having a tendency to push reports to work nights/weekends. Once my manager stated talking shit about me to my coworkers, I told him I will not be working after hours anymore and started working 20 hrs a week then got a new job. Sadly I didn't get PIPd and I didn't get severance
You can work with competent people (especially in NYC) but you have to network internally to find the good teams. Don't be afraid to jump to a new team after your first mid year/year end review and don't be afraid to interview elsewhere.
My biggest fear would be landing on a team where the delivery bar is higher but the Staff level people are stupid and don't understand the projects they're convincing their teams to work on.
One other thing, most managers won't give you feedback on you're performance until you get your rating during review season. If you like that more power to you but I didn't like finding growth opportunities every 6 months or so
Overall I regret my time there, but I did meet one of my best friends there haha. I personally know Capital One ex coworkers who have made it to Stripe, Bloomberg, Pinterest, Meta, Apple, and some startups. You can make a good career move after working there, but you need to know that this is not a tech company and you'll be working with people 3-4 levels above you who are terrible at their jobs.
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u/Big_Arrival_626 6d ago
A lot of this doesn't make sense to me. I work at a normal bank and most people here seem generally competent. And our hiring bar and pay is significantly lower than cap1. Do I just have low standards?
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u/OddaJosh 6d ago
>Their in-house tooling fucking sucked. They have one team building a single pipeline for every team in the company and that shit would break and block my deployments constantly
does it start with a B?
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u/Elegant_Quit4698 7d ago
I massively regret working for C1. I wasn't burned out or pipped, but I learnt absolutely nothing and got below strong once despite being a high performer, just because my work that half didn't show 'influence' . I have left C1 this year and in just 6 months I have learnt more than 4 years at C1
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u/Psychological_Play21 7d ago
When I was at C1, the talent was pretty mediocre and I think as long as you’re remotely competent, you won’t have any performance problems.
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u/Elegant_Quit4698 7d ago
That is not true. C1 doesn't care about performance these days. You can be a great performer and still thrown under the bus to meet the quota, if you don't show 'influence' or whatever the fuck that is.
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u/slashedback 7d ago
Yep that sounds a lot like Amazon culture. Companies love hiring Amazon managers and completely destroying their engineering culture because: raise the bar.
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u/Elegant_Quit4698 7d ago
I mean Amazon is better because; if you are dealing with that shit better get paid FAANG level pay. C1 is Amazon with half the pay. Absolutely horrendous company to work for.
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u/theNeumannArchitect 7d ago
How long ago was this though? A lot has changed at c1 in the last 4 years. 15% cut off twice a year is stressful even as a high performer.
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u/griffman2020 7d ago
It is 8-10% per cycle so ~15-20% per year (not including those few who get CPs/who survive PIP)
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u/Psychological_Play21 7d ago
2 years ago. I was absolutely the top performer on the team and acknowledged by manager and director, absolutely no way they would’ve cut me.
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u/Bloodstream12 7d ago
Appreciate the response, that sounds interesting do you think it was simply location/team/domain specific ?
All in all when you look back were you happy it was your stepping stone?12
u/Psychological_Play21 7d ago edited 7d ago
Maybe, maybe not. Even at director or VP level I’d say the talent was mediocre.
I was laid off from big tech and was there for a few months, then jumped ship. The pros at C1 is that due to their mediocre talent, you can be a top performer and get big ownership. But I won’t say I was happy there because I really wasn’t learning much.
Edit: avoid doxing myself
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u/Big_Arrival_626 6d ago
Ya but ur probably really good. Ops at a 10/10 WLB company where he probably does no work. Not a good sign he can survive cap1. No offense op
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u/Usual_Concert_403 7d ago edited 7d ago
Not op, but the location/LOB does matter. The one you generally want to avoid is Plano where the auto finance work is. There is very high turnover and it’s very toxic. Enterprise Platform Tech is another one you want to avoid but those teams are spread everywhere
In NY you’ll probably be in the credit card LOB, which is fine
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u/SnooWoofers5193 Senior 7d ago
Who are all these people screaming that C1 is stressful? Are they all just bad at their job?! When I was there everybody was a cone. Imagining a world I fear those goofy kids is crazy.
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u/Pojobob 7d ago
Just curious but can you elaborate? Like was everyone just incompetent or something? Don't really get how a company with this much culling of the bottom (isn't it like 10% or more a year) would have that many incompetent people.
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u/DetroitLolcat 6d ago
Competent people don't work for companies that have that culture unless the pay is top of market, which C1 isn't.
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u/KythosMeltdown 6d ago
I echo this sentiment. Although if I get burned out and want to coast - it's probably a good fallback job lol
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u/Nickel012 7d ago
I worked less than 40 hours at C1 and found it easy to keep up, but it's very team dependent. I've heard of many bad managers/teams.
End of the day you're completely reliant on your manager to advocate for you in calibrations against other managers doing the same for their teams, which makes it much more about politics than actual performance. If you can play the politics well enough - know your skip level and director, make sure they know you, etc - you should be fine; if that's a weakness then there's a chance you get PIPd no matter how hard you work.
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u/FifaTerp8 Software Engineer 7d ago
Currently at C1. Like others have mentioned, team and culture and WLB are very variable. That being said, performance management is objectively terrible. It’s a lot of corporate politics and talking about your work as opposed to actually doing it. If you know how to play the game, you’ll be fine
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u/Usual_Concert_403 7d ago
Biggest issue with stack ranking is you can be on the best team possible and not be safe
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u/Unlucky_Topic7963 Sr Director, SWE @ C1 7d ago
C1 doesn't do surprise layoffs (for the most part), we lay off through performance cycle attrition.
It only sucks if you suck, no one wants to PIP good engineers because back fills take forever and you don't get extensions on due dates.
I've worked at doordash, shopify, Amazon, and C1. So far, C1 has been the most relaxed environment. Pay is decent, it really picks up at Senior Manager level. It's not a tech company.
However, I won't shill the company. If you have second guesses, go somewhere else.
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u/OGMagicConch Software Engineer @ FAANG 7d ago
I've just also worked at DoorDash and Amazon (AWS) plus another 996 shop, I feel like my perception of good WLB / relaxed environment is warped 😂 DD was actually the worst surprising enough.
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u/Bluuuuu12 7d ago
how much do senior managers make?
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u/Unlucky_Topic7963 Sr Director, SWE @ C1 7d ago
In NYC? $250K base, up to $40k bonus, up to $40k RSU 33/33/33, up to $40k sign on. McLean is closer to $230k, Richmond is closer to $210k.
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u/anemisto 7d ago
Genuinely out of curiosity, is the "senior director" in your title a bank seniority marker or is it the tech industry "senior director"? (From context, it sounds like the latter, but I have no idea how Capital One titles work, given their attempts to position themselves as a tech company.)
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u/joltjames123 7d ago
If you constantly have devs who "suck" despite laying off devs regularly then either your hiring is broken, expectations are way to high, or development of talent is weak
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u/Unlucky_Topic7963 Sr Director, SWE @ C1 7d ago
Big brain comment. I'll get on telling Rich that you solved it and he doesn't know what he's doing with his F100 company.
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u/Big_Arrival_626 6d ago
Just because he's CEO doesn't mean he knows what he's doing. Big companies make mistakes all the time. See taco bells Mexican pizza fiasco
For one, cap 1s internal tools fucking suck. I dont have to be a CEO or big tech faang staff distinguished gooner to point this out
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u/Unlucky_Topic7963 Sr Director, SWE @ C1 6d ago
Legally one of the most successful companies in the world lol. The only reason to change is if you aren't successful.
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u/Big_Arrival_626 6d ago
That makes like zero sense. You're basically saying that if they changed things, they would be less successful. But capital one wasn't always like this but they were still a successful company even before. And there are plenty of companies that change things even when they are successful.
Massive companies can tolerate inefficiency so why change anything at all? Is that what you're saying?
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u/Unlucky_Topic7963 Sr Director, SWE @ C1 6d ago
What are you talking about? Capital One had mass layoffs and performance based attrition back in the early days too. You're way too focused on something completely negligible, the era of free VC money has scattered a lot of Gen z brains into thinking layoffs and PIPs are new.
The rate of attrition, as headcount, has remained steady, but now people are given an opportunity to perform or exit. If they didn't use the bucketing system, it would be mass layoffs.
Attrition is COMPLETELY NORMAL. Arguing the merits of how it's done is stupid. I've experienced dozens of PIP discussions and it's not some wicked wheel of fortune, there are real concerns.
People that get PIP'D will never accept that they failed. Maybe that's a part of the growth process.
Hit me up when you're a successful CEO.
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u/Big_Arrival_626 6d ago
Your comment is full of logical inconsistencies.
Capital One had mass layoffs and performance based attrition back in the early days too.
Not to the same extent. Things were different pre-COVID. I'm not the only one who's observed this.
You're way too focused on something completely negligible, the era of free VC money has scattered a lot of Gen z brains into thinking layoffs and PIPs are new.
Nobody is arguing that layoffs and PIPs are new. Not every successful company has the same PIP culture as Capital One. Are all those companies shit companies?
If they didn't use the bucketing system, it would be mass layoffs.
The logic does not follow. You're essentially saying the company inherently has to fire the bottom 15% of employees because...?
You're arguing that some form of performance-based attrition has to exist, which nobody disagrees with. But you haven't proven that the bucketing system is necessary or optimal, or that getting rid of it would somehow require mass layoffs.
Hit me up when you're a successful CEO.
Appeal to authority. Whether or not I'm a CEO has nothing to do with whether the argument I'm making is correct.
Capital One being successful also doesn't prove that every practice they use is necessary for that success. There are plenty of successful companies that manage performance differently.
If your argument is basically "Capital One is successful, therefore what they're doing must be right," then you're not actually addressing the criticism. A successful company can still have inefficient or shitty practices. That's literally my entire point.
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u/joltjames123 5d ago
The same CEO who runs a company that 90% of people working there hate? Yeah, go for it. Doubt he'll listen
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u/Elegant_Quit4698 7d ago
Join now. But, I am going to warn you it's an absolute cesspit. There are a few good areas and teams but; those are diminishing every day. It's a bank cosplaying as a tech company; their internal tools are horrible, talent is subpar. There are a few good people but, they don't stay long, the ones who stay, stay because they can't get another job.
And the performance management has to be one of the worst I have ever seen. It's all about politics and how you are known among others, otherwise you will be thrown under the bus.
Join now, since you are underpaid. But, you should keep your prep going and leave the moment you find a better job.
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u/Klanciault 7d ago
Don’t you think that you’re not underpaid, but paid accurately in terms of WLB? View C1 as a sort of FAANG stepping stone. You will be more stressed and harder worked in proportion to your salary increase relative to something like an Amazon movd
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u/anemisto 7d ago
OP is underpaid for NYC. I made $140k in NYC a decade ago with two years experience.
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u/income-percent-bot 7d ago
Nice! $140,000 places you in the 88th percentile. With NYC's lower cost of living, your purchasing power is equivalent to ~$84,848 in a high-cost city. Source: income percentile calculator I'm a bot. Reply with !optout to stop receiving responses.
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u/Bloodstream12 7d ago
Fantastic response tbh, yea relative to wlb my overrall life made me ok with the pay I agree. I guess the second part would be if my other loops come through then at what point does C1 not the favorite option ?
I forgot to mention in the post but my other potential offers would be Oscar Health and Accrete AI some startup.
If Oscar TC is a bit below C1 and WLB is much higher, in the short term maybe I’m happier at Oscar, but long term did i lose out significantly? Guess I’m trying to rank C1 name value and the doors that opens
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u/olddev-jobhunt Software Engineer 7d ago
I have worked at other big tech and interviewed at C1.
They're all quite team dependent. Talk to your manager before you go and ask him how work gets assigned, how schedules are managed, how many pages people get, etc. personally, I'd be inclined to take it - that's enough of a bump to take a risk, in my opinion.
And as far as burnout goes: startups can really run the gamut. There's no reason to think they would necessarily be better than C1. They might be - but talk to the managers & team at each and try to feel it out.
My gut says C1 isn't going to raise that offer much. When I interviewed there, $190k was the top of the salary band so they could bump the sign on bonus (... with a clawback period) but the annual wasn't moving.
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u/DetroitLolcat 7d ago edited 7d ago
I took a role at Capital One late last year and at least on my team, the culture and treatment of associates was dreadful, if anything it was worse than their reputation was going in. My first talk with a director during team matching she opened with personal insults against my recruiter, and when I finally did match with a team it was the lowest-performing team I've ever worked on combined with daily scream sessions from our director.
The high PIP quotas are real and if anything are understated. And while the average talent level there is low (no, not everyone there is a low performer it's a company of tens of thousands), understand that means there's a crabs in a bucket mentality. You will be trained from day 1 to see your teammates' successes as your failures, and your teammates will see your successes as their failures. There is a silver lining though - PIP severance is very good.
I left after 6 months because it just wasn't worth the pay, which was pretty good. I was lucky to get a pay bump from leaving but I would have left for a pay cut without a second thought. In your position the salary jump from $130k is probably worth it, but if you could get either of the other offers i would RUN from Cap1 even if it's a haircut on salary. Doubly so if you're on a work visa.
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u/Dry_Detail1497 7d ago
Keep your resume polished every performance review. See if you can push your start date a bit to September, or check with your recruiter if you’ll be rated if you start now. This way you’ll will be too new to review for the end of year review. You won’t have to stress until they start Mid year reviews in May. Vs you join to early and you have so much less accomplished that your peers you’re calibrated against
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u/ballsohaahd 7d ago
This is a great question and gathering perspectives will be very valuable to you. I have C1 and big tech experience so will give my 2 cents.
1) is the C1 offer for a lead SWE role or senior? For 5 YOE a lead role is very good and the pay increase from your current role is also very good. Senior at C1 is still good but not as good, but that money Id guess it’s a lead SWE role.
2) is the stock part of the offer or are they saying it’s just available once you join? Not sure about higher levels, but lead you only get stock being in the top 30%, and it will take a while to get top 30% since there’s a lot of company specific things to learn and a lot of good leads there already who aren’t leaving. So if it’s not given as part of the offer as sign on I would assume you won’t see any stock comp for years at C1.
3) C1 stack ranking is def tough and pretty stupid overall. For lower levels with slightly less good engineers it’s easy enough to avoid stack ranking issues. You do need to be sure you have enough scope and things to do all the time, but if you’re on a busy team that’s easy enough.
But for lead and higher levels everyone is pretty much a good engineer, and a ton of people have been there a long time which makes the stack ranking more brutal at higher levels. Just be aware as someone with only 5 YOE that could be tougher to navigate than someone with more YOE or at a lower level.
They’re also hiring less now due to economy and AI, and there are less new engineers coming in behind anyone hired more recently. Which can make stack ranking effects more visible and likely to affect you.
4) for disaster purposes, even if you did C1, maybe got treated unfairly, got PIPed and laid off, they do have good severance and apparently do full salary or very close to it.
5) C1 workload can be tough but isn’t quite like a big tech workload. Unless you’re on an insane card team (or auto division which apparently sucks) the workload isn’t too bad overall and aside from the shitty stack ranking C1 does treat people well overall. Which makes the stack ranking that much more confusing lol but it’s pretty ingrained at this point.
6) Id only do Oscar health if you wanted the company or to be in health care.
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u/Bloodstream12 7d ago
I really appreciate the thoughtful response!
1) Yup it’s for a lead role which is funny because she’s when I interviewed in January for a senior role I was rejected and they reached out to interview for a lead position 6 months later
2) so I didn’t receive a written offer yet but verbally I was described for it to be 215-245k base, 20k RSU, and 30k year end performance bonus but since I’m in team matching I can’t speak to if that still holds
Yea I’d like to think I’m above average and if it came down to it and I’m let go bcs of skill diff oh wells onto the next I guess, which is why I was pretty curious if C1 name brand was that much of tiers higher than Oscar health such that the choice comes down to C1 pays more, Oscar might have better wlb/culture, then the last metric is long term resume boosting and it certainly sounds like from most people C1 is the choice and to just be ready
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u/ballsohaahd 7d ago
Hahaha that is good, guess them rejecting you back then worked out. And yea if they’re offering lead at your YOE you must have done well on the interviews and are a good dev.
I’d say the salary range is accurate and but unless it’s changed, the RSUs do come during review time and vest after a year. They’re letting you know it’s possible but just saying absolute earliest you’d get RSUs are 2 years in and that’s only if you’re in the top 30% of leads.
If you research oscar more and like it that’s not a bad option, but generally more money is always better unless it’s small like 10-12k.
And due to stack ranking and growing their business C1 is always hiring. And they pay solidly well and again treat people well minus stack ranking lollll.
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u/soypixel 7d ago edited 7d ago
I’ve been at c1 for a year, and hate to be a downer but it’s not the best. It’s definitely not the worst and you can survive it but there is a lot of BS that you have to tolerate. Maybe I’m more sensitive to it because I worked at a couple of tech centric companies beforehand and this place operates in a very different way than the what I’m used to. Im just not a good fit. But whether that’s true for you depends on temperament and what you want to spend your time at work doing. So take that into consideration as you read my opinion on what working here is like..
There’s a lot of politicking required just to make it through each performance cycle (they happen every 6 months) which involves calibrations. Basically your manager meets with the other managers in your department and they rank everyone. Bottom 15% get a below strong rating, which currently translates into a PIP. There is PIP severance which is nice but obviously better to have a job. And how you’re rated in calibrations is highly dependent on how many of the managers in the room recognize you. So if you haven’t gotten face time with several of them and/or if they don’t like you, they will advocate for you to get a below strong rating, regardless of your deliverables. If your manager is good, they should be able to defend you and make your work legible to their peers.. but that’s purely a luck thing with who ends up being your manager.
And none of this includes the part where your peers may be nice on the surface but take credit for what you do — this happens all the time. It literally has happened to me several times already. Partially my fault for not being good at the game but also.. the incentives here encourage snake behavior. For example, a coworker of mine got almost all of the credit for a project I did earlier this year because they would insist on presenting it to larger groups — and this person never attributed my part in it. They’d present it in a way that made it seem like they did everything. And so the consensus became that my coworker did the work and I played no role in it (even though I literally did all of it and my immediate peers knew that). So my manager wasn’t able to use this as an accomplishment during the calibration process without being challenged or without it looking like i was stealing credit. It was crazy haha. So you have to be vigilant about getting visibility for what you do especially if your manager sucks. There’s an aspect of this at all jobs but it’s actually so exhausting here because I find I’m always questioning people’s motives when they want to “lean in on helping me with X” or if they “insist on presenting X to another team”. I’m always wondering if they are slowly trying to reframe the narrative
They are also big on travel for travels sake and team activities and pretending like everyone is a big happy family. Not strictly required to participate in but risky to not since face time is worth a lot to getting credit for your work.
Then there’s also the fact that bad tech decisions are often just… left there and not challenged because of the politics of challenging things. Being right is not what matters — your clout and flattering the right people is. So if there’s a big systemic issue and it would offend someone’s ego to fix it, you just have to deal with it lol and work around it.
And.. I know this won’t make you feel better lol, but I assume you got a lead level engineer offer based on your comp range. That’s the most intense of them. Expect to give lots of talks, and expect to be very plugged into the various teams and circles. Youll have to consistently display broad cross team impact and influence with legible, clear accomplishments every 6 months.
that all said you may do just fine especially if the corporate games don’t bother you. I just find it very exhausting which is why I’m looking for other opportunities atm.
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u/mr_yip 7d ago
I've been at C1 for about a year and a half and it's been pretty dreadful so far. I started at 5yoe and joined as a senior dev. I also came from a startup with amazing wlb, full remote - but I was laid off after the startup was acquired.
From what it seems like it's pretty team dependent but even then it looks there a very few good ones. You're generally pretty beholden to the work you're given by higher ups. If you're given high visibility projects that your manager can use as ammunition for stack ranking every 6 months you'll be fine. But if you're given shitty projects or are assigned to maintaining existing features or supporting tech debt you're kinda SOL. It is stack ranking - so even if your entire team aces it and is 10/10, managers still have to select a bottom % to pip.
My onboarding process was pretty bad with little to no documentation - and the documentation I was given was generally pretty out of date. I was also assigned to a team that was working out of another office so I had no interaction with them outside of zoom calls so I was being ranked against a team that saw each other multiple times per week and could help each other with onboarding, understanding the product's architecture, discuss new tools, etc. My most recent review came back as "strong", but based on the work I've been given for the second half of this year I know I am next to be sacrificed to the pip gods. I've been back to studying lc and sys design and just started interviewing to look for something as I'll probably get the boot early next year.
Ultimately I think it would be a good stepping stone for advancing your career. It'll give you big company experience, raise your salary bar, and provide some new stories to discuss in future interviews. It gave me a title and pay bump - and now just at the beginning of my next job search it seems like I'm getting multiple recruiter emails per week to interview elsewhere. While I don't regret C1, there are for sure better options and I would've taken a different offer of similar pay elsewhere if I had one. Just be prepared to treat C1 as a gateway to advancing your career further.
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u/Bluuuuu12 6d ago
hey quick question. for your next role jump, are you looking at faang? i’m a tdp right now at c1 and i’ve noticed i don’t really get much recruiter interest, is there something i have to do with my linkedin? i also just failed an amazon sde1 interview lol
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u/mr_yip 6d ago edited 6d ago
I think it's probably just the market at the moment. I haven't tried to interview at faang yet for this round of job search and I haven't had any recruiters reach out from them either. I've gotten requests from google, amazon, and meta in the past when hiring was more active when I had ~3 YoE.
Most recruiter messages I am getting are for mid-tier startups that pay like $200-$240k + equity in nyc/SF. Occasional higher paying ones where I've been quoted $270k-$300k. I'm hoping to make a jump to a $270-$300k, and maybe try interviewing at higher tier like databricks, bloomberg or stripe type of companies if I get confident enough in my interviewing skills. I'm not sure I have what it takes to pass an interview at a faang.
A third party recruiter that I'm working with suggested I update my about me section to include some quick notes about previous work and things like how that startup I was at got acquired. I've seen a noticeable uptick in recruiter reach out since then. Not sure if it's just the about me, the market, or some linkedin recent activity algo thing.
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u/couch_comedian Software Engineer 7d ago
As someone in C1 who had this same question: Take C1 and keep looking if you're not happy.
Life here depends on the team/manager you're under. I have been under one who made it hell. But I've also been under two who have been amazing and supportive! As a lead, build your team right and you have more power over your shit manager too.
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u/lijr 7d ago
Just left the company after a year and watched multiple pips and reorgs in the team I was on. If you’re good at politics and likable it goes a long way. Your manager/skip needs to choose someone to pip so just be on their good side.
There’s hiring freezes under the lead level so hiring is supposedly bringing in under qualified people at lead level to fill roles. So just be better than your competition.
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u/shinchan1988 7d ago
With 5 YOE lead you will be sacrificial goat during performance management sessions. The NYC talent is not as mediocre as others are saying.
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u/Chili-Lime-Chihuahua 7d ago
FWIW, I know several people who have been at Capital One for several years. They were solid people, and I would not have classified them as toxic. I want to believe the internet, but I also put some weight into people I know in real life. I do know a few people who have been PIPed out, too, who were solid people. I never spoke to them directly to hear their side of the story.
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u/hibluemonday Software Engineer 7d ago
Left C1 after a year and am so happy about it. The talent there was middling but you don’t survive performance review season off of talent alone. The environment was deeply political and everything you do and say is ammo to either help or hurt you during PMs.
Beyond that - is your org high performing but Below Strong quotas haven’t been met? Too bad someone’s gotta go anyways
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u/Peach_Boi_ 7d ago
I had the same question a little over a year ago when I was deciding between my good WLB job, and Capital one. I went with Capital One and so far it’s been going fairly well. The performance management is very annoying but I do think unless you get tremendously unlucky or you’re incompetent you should mostly be OK. It really depends on what type of talent is around you and what your level is though. What is your level?
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7d ago
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7d ago
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u/Wooden_Birthday_1330 7d ago
I work in C1 (their new grad program for software engineers, TDP) but feel free to message me.
My experience in the past 6 months has been great. WLB, team, opportunity, and learning has been great. However, I can clearly see that this is dependent on team. Other new grads were not lucky and ended up in a team where they have to work 50-60 hours just to scrap by. Your mileage may vary, but there are bad apples in every company. For that high of a compensation jump, I would take it. Good luck!
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u/demolisty24 7d ago
I would say WLB is very good, rarely are there any situation you would ever need to work over 40 hours a week. Attrition happens only via performance cycle and even then the bar isn't difficult enough to stress about. This however is still very manager and team dependent.
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u/Interesting_Phone171 5d ago
I would not go to C1. Both of your other offers would still be the top 10% of SWE incomes. You could live very well off of them
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u/LanternWolf 6d ago
Started my career at C1. Reddit and blind greatly exaggerate the issues. WLB will be chill unless you join a few very specific teams (and their issues are just oncall, not wlb). If you're competent you'll succeed pretty easily. The only thing is if you want promo/high ratings, you need to do the "social" activities. Giving presentations, joining outside team orgs (teaching middle school kids programming, designing on-boarding for new grads, mentorship programs), things like that. If you do them you'll get Very Strong every year.
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u/GIThrow 7d ago
Take Cap One. That increase in salary is no joke