IT - a great place for high school politics - IT Manager Capital One Employee Review

1.0
May 21, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Fairly flexible work schedules, pay and benefits are ok. Work/life balance for the right groups is great. The business leadership is very sharp. A lot of the rank and file are genuinely good people.

Cons

Most of the senior IT leadership is incompetent, with most of them being unprincipled Peter Principled project managers promoted way, way above their competency level who know little about technology, less about leadership, and nothing about building and fostering a healthy organization. But they are really good at playing politics and deflecting blame for their failures onto suitable scapegoats. If you aren't in the right clique - your career will go nowhere. If you are technical, your career will go nowhere (but don't worry, they have been working on a career track for technical people for the last 6 years that will eventually take it beyond the manager level, honest, it's coming any day now). Unless you come in fresh out of college, it's unlikely you will leave the company with a better set of skills than you originally came with. If that's not enough to dissuade you, here are a few more cons: they have a meeting driven culture - as in all day, all meetings. Nothing can get decided without several meetings involving up to a dozen or so people to discuss it. Even if it involves only one person actually doing something. The "anonymous" opinion surveys...probably aren't anonymous. If you aren't already tagged as being targeted for promotion, you probably won't get a great rating, no matter how great of a job you actually did. And if you aren't in the right clique - guess what, you probably won't get tagged for promotion. If you are in the right clique though, get ready for champagne wishes and caviar dreams.

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5.0
May 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good people and good pay

Cons

Credit cards aren’t that exciting

1.0
Jun 1, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Pay can be decent compared to GovCon. Some people are a pleasure to work with. Other non-pay related incentives.

Cons

Never heard more nonsensical topics during meetings; people sharing their sexual preferences, flaunting overly dramatic personal lifestyle decisions, diversity to the point of failure, etc. Hearing the term "white guilt" in a professional setting was, well, pretty unprofessional. Stack ranking for performance reviews is a mess. Someone has to have an "F" regardless of their performance because that is what their line of business is allotted. Be prepared to be held responsible for actions any Sr Leadership would just sweep under the rug under their own circumstances. If a manager doesn't like you, regardless of your productivity, you're toast unless you're able to find another LoB to support. HR / AR are just a check in the box and will most likely point you from one to the other and back again without resolving any issues. You'll find yourself curious as to what leadership does as they continue to scrape managerial responsibilities from their plate, to yours. Last but certainly not least; you may find yourself working hard on a project; nights and weekends, just in case that work life balance is feeling a little too perfect. Fret not, someone will surely assist in taking credit for the hard work you've put in. I'm sure none of these things will happen to you, though. Best of luck!

5
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