Hi I just interviewed for a product design role at Airwallex. I've read a lot of negative reviews on Glassdoor and Blind. Just wondering anyone had experience working in the design team or the global account or global treasury team? thank you! #Airwallex
It's not amazing, seems like a lot of design areas are micromanaged quite a lot by leadership.
Design @ Airwallex here. There’s pros and cons. High visibility work, ownership of a big area of the product, lots of potential for impact + growth. But we’re a small team, lots to get done in terms of process and tooling (we do have a design systems and user research tools though). Approval is centralised at the top which is not amazing. Micromanagement only happens if you can’t deliver sensible designs in my experience. The global treasury product is an interesting one. It’s a core product so your work will be high vis (and potentially scrutinised per my point above). Also, design culture is great in the Singapore office. It can be a bit lonely if you join in the US or Australia.
By "centralized" this person means "CEO decides" and if he doesn't like your design you're fired.
Centralised to 2-3 people with the CEO having veto right. And yes, if design solutions presented are consistently not liked by stakeholders then you’re out.
Prepare for CEO to personally ping you if he doesn't like anything and potentially be fired. Even if PM decision. Design is a small great team of good people, I really enjoy working with most. Maybe 20 total, but around 10 have been fired in the last year. No, not a PIP, just CEO emotional and hyper micromanaging work so gone. Some of them been here for 2-3+ years 😓 Let go before hired replacements so the team double time constantly. They're great, but horrible CEO and he will review you nwork.
10 out of 20 fired for no good reason, no surprise, airwallex's culture
2.9 is quite the rating, even on Blind where things skew negative.
Ex-FANG here. If you give FANG a 4 then Airwallex should be a 1.5-2.0 max, even vs. Amazon.
I didn't know what a toxic company was until I joined airwallex