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Comment by IndianAstronaut | Hacker News Reader

I am experiencing this now at Capital One. Routinely berated, intimidated into better performance, arbitrary judgements, a lot of belittling(e.g. you're no rocket scientist), and threats (eg you are screwing your reviews, I will hold you liable, etc.).

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Yeah, not too surprising Capital One has a poor internal culture, they do a ton of creative accounting, to the point that they were able to outmanuver American Express on the Costco relationship.

That being said, I really hate my Costco Cap One card, anything over $300 gets flagged & SMS approval doesn't ever work (despite getting a confirmation back saying it will go thru).

I've heard some pretty bad stories from the people over at EMC, they share a joint office here in Seattle with Capital One.

As someone currently considering a really tempting offer with them, this sounds rather alarming. Could you please elaborate?

Sure. Basically started off there working with analysis teams. You will be working with some very old school managers who follow a strict hierarchy. Things may seem golden for a couple months, but then the threats and intimidation go into full gear. I was told that I would be held liable for failures even though my manager was making the decisions which were resulting in failures. I was told multiple times that if a project was not done, I would be in big trouble.

If I spoke up about a new technology or method, I was told sarcastically that "oh you're so smart". I have been told that the work I am doing isn't rocket science.

Micromanagement has been the norm lots of digging into the details of the project by managers who don't even know the difference between Java and Javascript.

Nothing is in writing so managers frequently will bring up issues about things not getting done or taking a different direction. The politics are rotten.

Thanks for sharing your story! I'll try and talk to the hiring team to look for indicators of such team politics.

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