The Cons of Both a Start-up and a Bureaucracy with None of the Benefits - Tech Lead N26 Employee Review

1.0
Jun 27, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

* Free refrigerated drinks. * Free lunch on Wednesdays. * Dogs are allowed in the office (hi Benno).

Cons

* Low pay which is not related to either experience or performance. * Engineering managers who don't even know how to read the code of those they evaluate. * Performance evaluations driven by political connections while ignoring contributions, there is literally no place to list contributions. * People get entirely skipped in performance evaluations with no explanation. * Product Managers who have never written requirements. * Principal Engineers with less experience than junior engineers. * Out-dated technical stack that doesn't perform, doesn't scale, and has frequent outages. * Rigid, authoritarian, control that retaliates against people who actually solve real problems. If a solution was not dictated by your unqualified manager, you will face retaliation even after you fix problems and make improvements. * Decision making in off-site "inception meetings" that leave engineering out of the process and whose members are hand-picked from the most politically connected. * Extremely top-heavy organization. "Target Operating Model" introduces several layers of managers with poorly defined responsibilities filled by unqualified, but politically loyal, people. It is not uncommon for work that takes an hour to be frozen and blocked for a month while the managers above hold endless meetings about topics they know nothing about. You will not be invited to these discussions about your work. * Despite the massive headcount, most have no idea what to work on, and those who do the actual work that keeps the business alive are badly understaffed.

avatar
N26 Response
6y
Thanks for sharing your overall experience with us. We are sorry that your experience at N26 has more cons than pros. We strongly recommend you reach out to the People Team to have a personal conversation about your issue(s). Employee feedback is of great importance to us and we will ensure that your feedback is communicated to the relevant department.

Explore other reviews about N26

5.0
Jun 13, 2023
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great product and design and team is worldclass

Cons

more focus on understanding customer needs

5.0
May 21, 2018
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Small team in NYC working on bringing N26 to the US. Flat team structure (no bureaucracy or painful hierarchies). Open lines of communication and instant feedback loops. Everyone is extremely smart and driven towards a common goal, and we also enjoy each other's company both in and out of the office. There's also respect for having a life outside of work and a good sense of balance. Huge opportunity to take on as much work as you can handle and drive your own workstreams and outputs. I've found that my scope of responsibilities is quite large, and since joining, I've broadened my skill-set significantly in areas I wanted to expand upon.

Cons

Coordination with Berlin can be difficult at times given time zones and hypergrowth there. Nonetheless, people always are willing to help out and make themselves available when needed. Small team size as of now means fewer hands to help with all that needs to get done. That said - plenty of opportunity for new joiners to take on key tasks and responsibilities as we continue to grow the team

32
avatar
N26 Response
7y
Thanks for sharing your feedback with us and your experience of working at N26.
See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All