Poor people management and lack of clear career path - Manager Coinbase Employee Review

3.0
2 Feb 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Group of the best and motivated people. Coinbase has been successful in attracting talent. Plenty of upside.

Cons

Beyond the crypto hype, Coinbase is facing some serious people management issues. It has attracted best talent from big and prestigious tech and finance firms, but those talented people are handled in a poor way. Whether it is pay, career grooming or long term retention. Needs some serious change. Have been at Coinbase for close to a year. High turnover and lack of clear career path for experienced professionals are two consistent themes across teams. Titles and levels are not consistent across teams. Compensation is mediocre. Ownership and accountability lacks. People getting fired, forced to let go or feeling unappreciated because the new managers don't connect with the old employees.

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Coinbase Response
7y
First off, thank you for being with us on this wild ride, for the work you do, and for sharing your thoughts. As you know well, anyone who has been with Coinbase for more than a year has experienced a ton of change and growth. Our growth means we have to level up—as individuals and as an organization. What worked for us at 50 doesn’t work at 500. We recognize this, and it’s a major area of focus this year. To help individual managers level up, we’re making significant investments in manager training and development. To help us level up as a company, we’re rolling out new and consistent levels across the organization as part of the current Performance and Development Cycle, and will have complete career paths for every team by the middle of the year. As you know, it’s a top priority to be the number one crypto company to work for, so we’re taking these efforts very seriously. I'm interested in learning more about your experience and how we can continue improving—if you have more to share, please feel free to reach out directly to me. Again, thank you for your feedback. Emilie Choi, Vice President of Corporate and Business Development and Interim Head of People

Explore other reviews about Coinbase

5.0
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CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Strong culture of ownership, and freedom to drive change and improvements

Cons

Runs lean which creates opportunity but can be challenging

4.0
6 Aug 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

- Very interesting technical challenges - A LOT of autonomy (could be a con) - Amazing perks (WFH stipend, random gifts all the time) - Very smart colleagues - Great communication all around the company - Exciting - Brilliant CEO and engineering execs - A lot of useful education and automation regarding processes

Cons

- There is a lot of autonomy so if you're the kind of person who needs the work to be handed to you, you'll have to adjust - Since crypto is a very fast paced field, you will often have multiple projects on the go at the same time so work-life balance is usually relatively bad, although the company does offer re-charge days (and weeks) so that we can all take time off. - This is the biggest con: you get assessed if you're "on-track" or "off-track" every quarter, if you're "off-track", you have 60 days to fix it. Quite an aggressive stance, similar to Amazon's PIP program which is notoriously toxic.

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