PayPal Reviews

I have been working at PayPal full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Flexible hours, challenging work environment, rapid growth of the business, good pay

Cons – Engineering environments, lots of legacy code to deal and frequent changes in process, tools

Advice to Senior Management – Focus on removing manual steps for technologists and improve engineer productivity

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at PayPal full-time for more than a year

Pros – Fantastic benefits and incredibly smart people. Some of the smartest people I have worked with in my career were at PayPal. Starting to become more of a marketing company and less of an engineering company which I think will only help growth.

Cons – Like any larger company it seems to be too heavily matrixed and there needs to be more communication between regions to take the company to the next level.

Advice to Senior Management – More in-house promotions and less global / regional organizational changes.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at PayPal full-time for more than 10 years

Pros – -Friendly and supportive culture--not a dog eat dog environment
-Great benefits and excellent eBay inc. stock program
-High performers are recognized and rewarded
-Current (though not past) management recognizes company challenges and has put bold plans in place to improve.

Cons – The company's core technology and development processes stunt innovation at the company. This makes product development progress incredibly slow and often unsatisfying to all who contribute. This has driven away many talented product managers and developers. eBay also has a penchant for constant reorganization. Every time a new senior leader comes in, a reorganization will be put in place. This flux causes churn and impedes both the company's and employees' goals.

Advice to Senior Management – Stop believing that reorganizations solve real problems. I've witnessed this tendency for ten years, and it has yet to yield lasting improvements to the effectiveness of teams.

Give small teams autonomy over product areas with guidance on expected results. Management still
tends to issue product edicts "This product must be built in so in so ways.." that are ill-informed and poorly conceived. Talented professionals who develop and manage products for a living will always produce better product solutions than professionals who run companies and manage people. The skill sets for these roles are not the same, and this needs to be acknowledged. Focus on the results and guide with expectations and core values.

The company *must* improve it's technology processes. All former leaders have failed at this--take the time to understand their mistakes and do not repeat them. Develop a concrete plan for this, and execute well.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at PayPal full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Good work environment and facilities. Work life balance

Cons – Continuous changes in management and each management thinks differently. You end up following those changes.

Advice to Senior Management – Better leadership should create leaders not borrowing them for a while and throwing them in ditch. Spend more budget for Technology/enigineers and not on your celebrations.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at PayPal full-time for more than 8 years

Pros – Outstanding coworkers and very good compensation.

Cons – I have been in Software for 15 years and have never met another company where they tell you NOT to learn new technologies. Their whole goal is instead have you devote your time to getting people in India to up to speed and to do the work for you. As a result of this, the opportunities and career path are very limited. Forget training. I did not experience this for the first few years when I joined - at that time it was a thriving environment, but this is what the company has become - and it shows as internal quality has gone down and we are not up on the newest/best technologies.

Additionally, if you get a good manager, things can be ok, if not, your career will die. There seems to be no decent way of regulating this from the top.

Lastly, promotions and career growth are non-existent if you are on the technology side. It is significantly better if you are on the business one.

Advice to Senior Management – Listen to the people on the ground, not those in the middle. Those on the ground will let you know what really works and what does not. Make sure management knows what their employees are doing (strangely, often they do not) - things in technology do not get magically done on their own.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I have been working at PayPal full-time for more than a year

Pros – - Good benefits
- Onsite gym
- Subsidized cafe on site with local ingredients
- Partner benefits for same sex couples

Cons – - few opportunities for advancement
- few opportunities in professional, salaried positions
- disconnect between leadership goals and management implementation of goals
- disconnect between President's message and local leadership
- clear favoritism, with some employees who excel being held back without explanation

Advice to Senior Management – - Someone needs to come in and take a look at how each unit is being managed at the local level.
- Get direct feedback from employees without managers present. True skip level meetings necessary, since there is fear of retribution amongst employees who express dissatisfaction.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at PayPal full-time for less than a year

Pros – people who know what they should be doing
bagels on wednesdays
nice gym

Cons – people who play along to get along, rather than doing what they should be doing (which requires having the guts to push against management)
management who lies through their teeth and has no shame about it

Advice to Senior Management – walk the talk; get rid of underperformers at the higher levels; trim the org down to size

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

I have been working at PayPal full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Growth Company - Great market potential
Focus from Senior leadership in being a technology driven and customer centric company

Cons – Culture at PayPal needs to evolve to greater technical excellence, higher productivity & customer centricity.

Advice to Senior Management – Operationalize the strategy or vision is critical to PayPal's syccess

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at PayPal as a contractor for less than a year

Pros – Everyone is very friendly and easy going. Dress is pretty casual, everyone wears jeans and a polo shirt or T-shirt. The group I worked in provided me with lots of useful feedback and career advice.

Cons – The workload for everyone in the company seemed to be very heavy. Being a financial company there is alot of red tape and process to follow.

Advice to Senior Management – I thought the management was good. Came around to talk to everyone in the department, and was easy to approach.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

I worked at PayPal full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great company which is doing extremely well in the marketplace. In some groups, the code you touch affects the livelihood of millions of people. A great place to learn about payments and payments processing. Some really top notch engineers.

Cons – More than a few mediocre engineers just coasting. The code base is kind of a mess, although many efforts are being made to fix things. The development environment, building and testing, was a real mess when I was there, although I hear that things have gotten a bit better.

Advice to Senior Management – Prioritize improving the development environment, reducing needless processes, and shortening the list of objectives and priorities.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company