Working at Marqeta
What’s the culture like? Does it hold up to the values it mentions? Favorite and least favorite thing about working there? TC n/a
Totally depends on your team. Most are good. I remain excited after working here for almost 2 years. TC isn’t at FAANG levels or anything like that – but as an employee you’re banking on the upside. There is a very solid group of excited, driven people who come into work every day inspired to continue innovating and building and those are the people who keep me working here.
Culture: not product driven, not data driven or analytical. Would describe as more Ops/project management heavy and sales-heavy, company is focused on business goals and seems less interested in R&D/innovation aspects of being a software company. Exec and middle management leadership has more of a payments or generalist backgrounds, not a lot of leadership with software experience so company is not run like a tech company in terms of metrics, and occasionally you will be shocked at how little the execs understand software. There’s a lot of frustration stemming from the fact that execs have a lot of infighting and aren’t able to focus on anything or push any significant innovations or product improvements (again, they understand payments but they don’t understand how to run software businesses). Favorite thing: the business model basically prints money and it’s a super relaxed vibe most of the time. You can basically work 4 days a week and nobody says anything. Least favorite: lack of focus. Business and product decisions not made analytically or based on data, primarily just based on reactions to what is happening in market. If you work here on product or engineering side it’s very unlikely you’ll ship a truly significant new commercial product innovation or feature. Company hasn’t really done that since 2015/2016
Like most things, it's what you make of it. There's enough motivated people to help you move the company forward. My favorite thing is that there's no limit to what I can work on - literally. Least favorite: there's a couple of toxic people that are really dragging down the culture. But, this is probably true anywhere.
a shit show, essentially
You'll definitely hear mixed reviews. But in general, the company doesn't seem to have a clear focus. It seems about twice a year, we have new goals, and those in teams that are no longer a part of the new goals feel deprioritized. We've definitely created new teams for these new goals sometimes, only to have those teams smothered in the crib. For those that have been with Marqeta for a few years, it gets to be old news, and we are jaded. I'm hoping that we'll actually stick to the latest plans, and that the newer employees can have a more enjoyable experience than us older folks have. So all in all, not the highest spirits around here, but maybe getting better. Maybe. 🤷♀️ DM me and I'll be an open book.
What’s keeping you there? What do you like about it? It seems like an exciting time with the new partnerships for global expansion and the $2B evaluation...
Nothing is keeping me here, I'm on my way out. I do have some amazing coworkers though, but that probably depends on the squad you're in. But yes, it is exciting times objectively speaking, but for some of those that have been here a while, we're pretty tired.