Needs a reality check. In a lot of areas. - Senior Staff Software Engineer Visa Inc. Employee Review

1.0
Oct 10, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good 401k, good parking, easy access from highway

Cons

Diversity - Visa must be the least diverse workplace I must have worked at in my 20 year career. Engineering is mostly filled with sub-par engineers with minimal skills that were contractors with some IT bodyshop at one point and got converted to employees. Most of your time is spent dealing with internal politics or drama with very little interest from your peers about actual work. Culture - Peers are super nice to each other but will speak negatively behind your back with great ease. Every one shares everyone else's compensation, performance ratings, upcoming promotions, family matters freely without any concern for privacy or feelings. This is across all levels of the company, all the way to top management. Most people hang out in groups to socialize with peers that speak the same language. Strategy - As an engineering org, there is no sense of direction There is absolutely no strategy from the top that cascades down to the front-line employees. All-hands meetings are a joke. Process Burden - Processes are archaic and there is little interest in changing anything. Most employees are stuck with long immigration waits and are bullied into working long hours and weekends. Things that are done in a matter of hours or are automated in the rest of the industry take weeks or months here. There is absolutely no respect for work-life balance. You are expected to answer texts, phone calls, IMs at any hour of the day or you are considered to be not committed or hard-working. Focus - There is also always some new flavor of the month. Some new security tool gets introduced that opens up a bunch of findings on your application and you spend the next 2 months chasing those findings. Or there is some massive migration effort that your org needs to undergo and you spend most of your year just moving all your applications and data to a cheaper vendor. You are then questioned on why you didn't get anything important done. Morale - Most mid-level management got beat up due to poor employee survey numbers last year. Managers spent most of their energy in addressing engagement issues versus getting anything real done. Individual contributors were asked to be more engaged and that was the end of it. Apparently this year, it is not a priority anymore and somehow things have made a 180 in terms of engagement. Growth - When it comes to career growth, promotions are done mostly on favoritism or tenure (need to be around for decades) and there are no formal career paths. Internal Mobility is talked about all the time but there are no protections. You apply for a role and you would be lucky if you even hear back from the hiring manager in months. You are then told eventually that the position was opened to fill an internal promotion. Performance Reviews - The performance review process is a big mess as well. Visa uses stack ranking and will force your manager to put someone on the top or worse, below every year. Then HR forces then their 'curves' and the rating that you get is something else altogether than what you were expecting or deserved. Your manager has very little say in your performance.

Explore other reviews about Visa Inc.

5.0
Jul 2, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

office, culture, leadership are great

Cons

not remote job, hybrid position (for me personally)

2.0
Jun 25, 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Excellent work-life balance, strong 401(k) match, and generally good benefits. There are smart, hardworking people across the company from all walks of life, and the Visa name still carries weight on a resume.

Cons

The work-life balance comes with a tradeoff: innovation moves at a glacial pace. In my experience, Visa was a highly political organization where visibility and relationships often mattered more than performance. Career growth felt slow, especially for high-performing mid-career employees looking to expand their scope or take ownership. There was constant organizational churn. In two years, I had three managers and made it through multiple reorgs, but our entire team lived in constant fear of ongoing layoffs. Layoffs and restructuring felt far more common than leadership acknowledged, which created a disconnect between company messaging and employee reality. The lack of trust for executive leadership is readily apparent across all internal channels. My org was not particularly valued, compensation lagged the market, and the return-to-office rollout was/continues to be handled poorly and rigidly. If you're looking for stability, predictable work, and reasonable hours, Visa can be a good fit. If you're a high performer looking for speed, creativity, ownership, and growth, there are better places to spend your time (and your paycheck will probably be higher).

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