Credit Karma reviews

- incredible amount of politics. I've had people (all very high level) tell me the company was like "game of thrones, kill or be killed", "you can never succeed," "this is my territory back off or I will block everything you try to do", "what you're working on is worthless", go behind my back to tell my bosses I wasn't doing a good enough job and they should take over, and bad mouth me and my projects simply to prioritize their work to the extent that multiple other people have apologized for their behavior subsequently - lack of long term vision. We make money when we help our members and our partners, but we've lost sight of who are members are and how to innovate to scale our business and are instead copying existing business models to try to grow and running into the same problems year after year - lack of member focus. I have never seen a company that talked so much externally and at a high level about caring about members increasingly become willing to sell them out to make a quick buck today. Features that actually benefit members are never prioritized, because people here make no effort to truly understand our largely lower income member base. - lack of cohesion, on a leadership level and throughout the company. This is evident in all the other reviews hat talk about how much policies differ across departments and teams . Due to the politics, there is incredible infighting and sabotage to the extent that tons of resources are wasted in the process, features take months longer to launch because people are constantly being reprise irised across projects. Even though we've changed to a matrixed (something senior leadership scoffed at before, by the way) org, that still happens to key eng teams and important projects are delayed 8+ months (not kidding!) - lack of career opportunities. Related to politics, the only way to get ahead is to play politics. People get promoted quickly if they fight for prioritization and resourcing and block everyone else out. Or if you know someone high up. No wonder company is a one trick pony. - lack of understanding of the business and market. People compete with each other so much they don't realize their real competition is external. The credit score model is dying fast, what will we find to really grow that? Very few people think beyond the internal game of thrones to the greater battle beyond - kind of like cersei.

Career growth, HR is cruel, and the culture at the company is fake nice. This is not a meritocracy. I don't even know how to begin to explain, other than starting with the simple fact that people do not get promoted on the basis of doing good work. In fact, people don't really get promoted at all. What's really happening is managers playing politics with each other all day. If you want to get a promotion you have to have the right manager, and chances are if *that*'s the kind of manager you have then you have to be extremely obedient, for lack of a better word. Also, most of the good engineers have started to leave. HR is straight up scary. It's rare that you'd ever have to deal with them, but if you do they can be so mean and insensitive. Basically, it's a kafkaesque, bureaucratic nightmare, with a little hint of a sadistic streak. I know that sound dramatic, but it's honestly how I feel. You know that feeling you get when someone enjoys having power over you and causing pain? That's how you feel when talking to HR, at Credit Karma. The last thing is that the company has really exploded in size and ambition lately, and it really feels a lot different. This used to actually be a nice place. Now it's fake nice. There's the managers playing politics, and you start to see the beginning of a lot of double speak. There are a lot of big projects, which has created a really cut throat, nasty attitude under the surface. This is not the kind of place where you can be yourself, unless that person is a robot and useful to their manager. Also, work speak is the absolute worse when it gets used as a tool to hide meanness.