Train wreck in progress - Software Engineer Block Employee Review

2.0
Mar 27, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Great perks, food and environment in the SF office. - Company likes to contribute to open source. - Engineering org is strong (but other orgs are much less strong by comparison). - Products you care about, helping sellers grow.

Cons

- Intensely political environment. - Constant re-orgs and management changes, like every month, to the point of being an internal joke. - Scandal central. Every high level manager sleeping with every other high level manager's girlfriend. - Company is run by high functioning alcoholics. You will be expected to DRINK. - Company has wasted hundreds of man years of effort (see Square Wallet, Pay by Name, Square Order, etc.) and now lacks direction. - Payments space is a race to the bottom, competition from PayPal, Amazon etc. is fierce. - Sky-high valuation is not justified by company's fundamentals. - Tech stack is disliked by many engineers and is burdened by years of tech debt mostly accumulated during the Starbucks launch. - High attrition, especially in the remote offices, and very especially in New York (>30%/yr). p.s. most of the glowing reviews here were written by HR

Explore other reviews about Block

5.0
May 22, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great work environment. Lovely company. Doesn't feel evil

Cons

A lot of older technology and obsolete frameworks. Having to develop with ember made me feel like my relevant skills were atrophying.

5.0
Sep 26, 2015
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Lots of benefits. Gym, free food, showers, Close to transit Good food Good software practices Is this twenty words yet

Cons

I would say that there aren't any cons really. I'm just trying to fill this space with 20 words

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