A company that grew real fast - and went downhill even faster
Pros
I have worked at Adyen for a long time, both at HQ and other offices. I have seen this company go through IPO, hypergrowth, a global pandemic, and more. Here's some pros: * "PRODUCT": Adyen's product is unparalleled. The only competitors in the same galaxy as far as product goes (as of Q4 2020) are Square (on the POS side) and Stripe (omnichannel), with the latter being the only true global threat. This is not as positive a pro as you might think (see cons: "SALARY" and "ARROGANCE") * "COLLEAGUES": Adyen has a strongly-enforced culture, which we refer to as 'the Adyen formula'. Not all the colleagues are smart, but they all fit the culture. What’s this culture like? Adyen is generally a very young company (avg. age 32) which makes it sort of a continuation of University - something that is compounded by low average tenure, almost no HR oversight, and the lax expense policy. It can get quite fratty. (see cons: "HR" and "DIVERSITY"), but at least WLB is good. * "MONEY". Adyen is literally swimming in money - with around 2 Billion EUR in cash or cash equivalent as per it's H1 2020 financial statement. This does not lead to high salaries (comp is low), but the money does gets spent - some of it on the very lax expenses and travels policy, some of it on lavish company parties, and a small part of it in actual innovation (see con: "VISION"). It can be fun
Cons
It breaks my heart to write this, but I’ve never in my entire career seen a company this size being (mis)managed this way – and decaying as fast – as Adyen. Here’s some cons: * “SALARY/COMPENSATION”: Adyen pays around 20% less than market rate – especially for junior and mid-career roles - and it's a conscious choice. The bunch of people driving actual work and innovation however are *very* underpaid: I’ve had people in my team leave for 2X/3X the salary they get at Adyen. This is also (for obvious reasons) the bulk of people leaving Adyen, which is a significant threat to a company that already innovates much less than when I joined. * “ARROGANCE”: because the financial indicators are very good and the stock price is soaring, there is absolutely no introspection. Teams that are entirely on fire see workers replaced with fresh hires without any change in management, products and projects get delayed by *years*, with no real accountability, managers (many of which are very new to the job) are left completely unsupervised. * “HR”. HR (recruiting, payroll, global mobility and the nonexistent ‘talent growth’) is one of the largest teams in the company, and keeps growing at a steady pace. Despite the growing need for a functional HR, at Adyen you will see HR exactly twice: when you’re hired and when you leave. If you think that’s good, try imagining who exactly will help you solve conflicts on the workplace, coach your manager, coach you, help with your relocation, with your insurance, with your Visa; who will help you grow your team, your skills, help you allocate resources, escalate problems, manage your talents, establish headcounts etc. since HR does *none* of that. Very bad for regular workers – but horrible for managers and therefore for the company. This is a common complaint, outlined multiple times in our ‘People and Culture audit’, which gets performed every year and then promptly buried by HR. * “DIVERSITY”. Adyen is diverse on paper, but in practice being a Dutch speaker and being a tall white male (in this order) will be a career booster. This problem is especially pronounced in some core business teams like platform and product (where diversity would be required to build a truly global product). The board is practically entirely Dutch Male, as is upper management. Casual conversation can be pretty racist (albeit often unwittingly) or sexist (this one wittingly, even high up the ladder). * “VISION”. When I joined, years ago, Adyen was a visionary company. Now we work for the short term, as dictated by the investors who ultimately own a significant chunk of post-IPO Adyen. From a technical standpoint, the architecture is buckling – but because of infighting between Ops and Platform (and Scalability…) very few structural Platform problems get tackled successfully. From a Product perspective, the last few flagship products have been designed and shipped by a small number of visionary workers, most of which have by now (Q4 2020) either left, have been pushed out, or are actively interviewing for jobs outside Adyen. The CTO retired this year – but he had already been working part time for two years now. Both him and the CEO are a lot less involved than when I joined (which is understandable), but still insist on running a few key processes while leaving their Yes Men to fill in the blanks - with just about the results you’d imagine. The CFO is the one doing most of the heavy lifting. Many people at Adyen wonder: who exactly is running the show? The company seems on autopilot except for a few excellent teams that largely work in isolation, and for a few vanity projects (Adyen Giving, Planet Fees, Formula Day etc.) that are the C-suite’s little toys but of very little importance to the bulk – or the future - of the company.