I'm writing this in the hopes that it's useful if you're considering it, with details I wish I knew before I embarked on my worst career decision to date.
I wish my review was different, as I love the product. That's one of the main reasons behind why I joined Revolut, which is still my main financial product and something I value as a user. Unfortunately, the company behind it is terrible.
I'm not saying Revolut is a bad choice for everyone, because it's not.
What I am saying is that if you value your personal time, mental health, and psychological safety and want to work in an environment that appreciates you and the art of the craft over office politics, don't fall into the trap of trading the above for a higher pay. Trust me, it's not worth it.
Plus, don't buy into the allure of the higher pay. In practice, despite paying above average on paper, when you factor in the very common 12-14 hour days that many employees need to work day in and day out, the hourly pay is actually way below average.
My story:
When joining Revolut, I was sold on the promise of a young startup with a great product, lots of learning and growth opportunities, and which pays well.
The reality is I left with a severe case of burnout, depression and anxiety that landed me in therapy, unemployed for a while due to the mental situation it brought me to, and with a massive bill to pay for all of it.
I'm happy to say I had a full rebound since and I've since joined a company that actually cares about its employees, and which I have a leadership role at now. So if I was able to find a much better alternative company, I'm sure you can too.
My experience:
1. Extreme micromanagement, coming from the top - it's very common for the CEO to schedule 2-3 review meetings each week with Product Owners and Designers where he'd publicly criticize their work without having much context
2. Unrealistic KPIs and targets - these are also often dictated from the top, and they're aggressive to the point that they're just plain unrealistic. However, not meeting them can cost you your job or have an impact on your pay
3. Hypocritical values - there are tons of examples here, but Think Deeper is the one that first comes to mind. Revolut preaches using logical reasoning for decision making and seeking for the truth in data, yet again the CEO had a mandate to basically ban any form of A/B testing or experimentation. I even know someone that was largely fired because he tried to experiment to understand what users really want, instead of just blinding listening to subjective opinions from senior leadership
4. Insanely high employee churn - given how many people were constantly leaving, I had to learn how to work with new people so often that it almost became a job in itself. After I left, a lot of my team did so too in the following months
5. A lot of incompetent leadership - I don't want to generalize too broadly here as my manager was actually someone I respected, but a lot of the senior leadership found its way through office politics and through blindly following directions from the very top, and most of that leadership team was far from being able to do what their roles implied and actually lead people
6. Disguised employee perks - in my view, perks should act as benefits for the staff. Some of them do, but many are actually just ways for the company to manipulate you into following its toxic practices. For example, is getting a 'free' dinner only if you stay at the office beyond 7 PM or 8 PM an actual perk? Or is it a shady tactic to get you to do unpaid overtime? I'll let you decide
7. Hard to get the support you need - because the company culture only rewards those that are able to hit targets, that incentivizes everyone to be laser focus on their own area and not help others or collaborate much unless it's to their benefit. Unfortunately, that ends up sometimes affecting even the people that are very helpful by nature, and leads to a deep siloing issue
8. Lack of psychological safety - there's a narrative that Revolut doesn't tolerate office politics, when in practice it's full of it. If you disagree with the CEO or some senior leadership folks or if you're unable to reach the unreasonable targets often set for you, you're basically at risk of being fired without any notice, and even publicly humiliated in group calls by having the CEO call you incompetent and dismissing your work (true story I was a witness to). Also, there's very little regard for people's situation, even if being let go implies losing their work permit from a country they moved to to join Revolut in the first place
There's a lot more to list here, but I'll conclude with the broken promises.
I was granted a performance bonus for one of the time periods I was at the company for. However, most of that stock options grant got annulled at some point after my departure, despite (1) me leaving because a therapist diagnosed me with work-induced depression and anxiety, and recommended me to quit, and (2) the fact that the performance bonus was for a period during which I was still at the company for and for which I earner it
