Toxic beyong comprehension - Anonymous employee Adyen Employee Review

1.0
15 Dec 2023
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

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

Cons

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.

Explore other reviews about Adyen

5.0
4 Feb 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good people. Hard work. They allow and encourage you to be creative.

Cons

Difficult to move within the company.

2.0
28 Apr 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Office - the offices are some of the nicest offices I’ve worked in. Barista on site and pretty good lunch every day. Travel - there is an annual trip to Amsterdam and you can travel through Europe from that. PTO - European time off mindset. You’re able to take a fair amount of time off. Some people - there are some really smart, caring, hardworking people but unfortunately they aren’t in leadership positions. Product - it’s fun to work on the product while it’s still evolving

Cons

Leadership - some leaders were there at the right place/right time and the lack of leadership experience is evident. They pawn career growth off entirely onto their reports and their ego gets hurt when their leadership is questioned or feedback is given that they should own more. Instead of taking that feedback, they hand over even more “leadership” tasks to individuals. They barely understand the day to day of their peers and are consistently questioned about what they do. If leaders were having an impact on their reports, there wouldn’t be these questions. It’s better to not voice concerns to your lead cause then you’ll just be on their troublemaker list. Toxic culture - if high school like cliquey culture is your thing, Adyen is for you. There’s a weird gossipy vibe for some teams globally. Along with that, there were times harassment and bullying from leadership was condoned. The heavy drinking culture lead to a number of times things got out of hand and lead to people being put into situations they shouldn’t have had to deal with. Then those same leads were given additional chances to continue the behavior till it cost money. If you see something, it’s better to stay quiet than speak up cause then you will have a target on you. Team members are too afraid to actually voice concerns. Pay - Pay can start pretty good but once you’re in, the pay increases are minimal. Options were a joke compared to previous employers. They want people to work there for “the right reasons” but you can compete a bit more on pay. Growth opportunities - there used to be more of a culture to try new roles and go back which was a positive. More recently, growth opportunities are limited and it’s more of a vibe versus tangible impact. You can bring evidence of work but if the you’re not more extroverted or have more of a pick me energy, you likely won’t move up at Adyen. This can be team specific so ask how growth decisions are made within that team. Leadership doesn’t really have an answer on how these things are measured and just get angry if you ask about it. If you want to coast, this would be the spot for you. Numerous people on the team would comment about working too hard and they were right. Product - stop breaking things with product and make operations pick up the slack.

4
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