How are the career development opportunities at Adyen?

Great environment, work life balance is good, growth opportunities can be good if you end up in the right team or knowing the right people

Salaries can be more competitive

Nice colleagues, nice office, generous benefits

Very few opportunities to develop your career further unless you are based in headquarters or a regional hub. They say they hire the best but then expect them to be happy with stagnation. Hiring and promotions are made without transparency, it’s more important to be friends with management than to be competent at your job. For this reason management is very undiverse and not as competent as you would expect in a company of this scale. I’ve experienced a lot of dishonesty from management, probably for this reason.

Flexible , ownership, good employees

Slow career progression, lower pay compared to other companies

Nice colleagues, good product, enterprise merchants

Team leads often can’t keep up with their responsibilities and aren't great at managing people. When employees seek guidance on clear career progression paths, they often receive little valuable input. Recognition seems to be more about engaging in corporate politics and networking with the right people rather than rewarding performance. Despite adding significant value to the team and working tirelessly, employees will not advance without screaming for visibility and playing the „corporate game“. Imagine your team lead telling you, you deserve a promotion but do not get it as you’re not „political and loud enough“. Promotions favour individuals who are great in self-promotion (even though they’re lacking behind) rather than those who perform excellent and have great knowledge. Star performers are often overlooked for promotions simply because they don’t drink coffee with the right people (which is completely meaningless to the job). Your progression depends on subjective decisions and how loud you can scream. It is absolutely demotivating hearing directly from one's manager that you deserve a promotion but won’t get it as you did not „scream loud enough and play the political game“. Salary progression is almost non existent, and for those prioritizing career and salary growth under effective managerial guidance, Adyen may not be the ideal workplace. Even though pictures on career pages might give a different impression, there is little diversity on upper management levels.

Couldn't think of any, especially when comparing with similar companies.

Majority of managers are yesterday’s students whose first real job is Adyen, therefore, you will receive a lot of wrong opinions and baseless condescending pushbacks rather than adequate discussion and process updates. Inner circle is promoting their friends just based on same country of origin and amount of alcohol consumed together during the weekend. Hierarchy, like nowhere else, cult-ish and arrogant. HR is the worst I ever had to deal with in my over 20 years of employment history. They simply don’t know what they are doing, the country’s policies, while behaving very condescending. Sexist and insulting feedbacks are very common in Amsterdam office. Abuse and bullying are justified by calling it “the dutch way”. No quality assurance in many departments, no career progression and all capable and smart people left the company already, or are on their way out. Students are being used as a main workforce in some departments, which makes everything extremely backwards and chaotic, and adding workload to experienced (mostly underpaid) staff. No promised work-life balance, as you will be pushed to go to office to justify investments of the CEOs. Low amount of vacation days compared to the competitors.

Good brand and reputation is good for your resume

No growth opportunities provided at all

Smart and great people to work with. Things can move really fast but also slow at the same time. There isnt much of a structure but that also gives everyone a lot of freedom to explore opportunities and grow their career.

There are many in leadership positions that grew with the company but might not be the most experienced to take the company to the next level of scale

Lots of international travel available, good work life balance

No clear career paths, little mentorship from managers

- Strong infrastructure and market leadership , especially in payments - Smart and driven colleagues at the IC level - Brand name still carries weight in the market - Good benefits (e.g. pension, lunch) if you plan to coast

Product management is fundamentally broken — there’s no clear strategy, vision, or leadership - PMs are often sidelined by engineering or commercial teams and reduced to project coordination roles with little real ownership - Major decisions (including team structure and priorities) are made without product input - There’s no product methodology, no shared frameworks, and no culture of product excellence - Leadership avoids conflict and defers decision-making, leaving teams in a state of chronic ambiguity - Middle managers are promoted based on tenure, not capability — often acting as passive stewards rather than actual leaders - Promotions and leadership roles are filled through opaque, closed-door processes - The leadership layer lacks diversity — culturally homogeneous, predominantly Dutch - Constructive feedback is routinely dismissed as “negative”, psychological safety is low. If you’re deemed as a problem, you will be forced out with bullying and coercion - Recognition is inconsistent, there’s no equity, and no meaningful performance-based reward system - Career growth for PMs is limited unless you’re part of the internal inner circle which is white and Dutch, or in some teams Brazilian. If you are in this circle you can do anything, like start your own team or move abroad as a lead of a product you’ve never managed before - Overall team morale and structure have suffered due to avoidance, inconsistency, and lack of advocacy from leadership

Flexibility, food and the culture

No opportunities for growth and career development