Survival in PayPal is a factor of how you manage upward not how you manage downward. - Manager PayPal Employee Review

2.0
25 Apr 2012
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great salary. It becomes a problem to the extent that you will find it difficult to get your next job. Good benefits. But a lot of those benefits were great only in the initial years. Good stock compensation (that was all in the past - no more relevant) One of the best places for Payments domain knowledge. Know how not to build software (there is so much learning that you have once you work here) There were very few competitors that gave Paypal a big first mover advantage. A great place to grow skills.

Cons

You may never get proper positive recognition for your work. You won't get relevant feedback for your actions. Everything is deemed confidential that noone is supposed to utter a word on who said what about you in any of the appraisal meetings. If you work in Chennai, your promotions almost always never happens. This is a personal experience. If you work in Chennai, your performance is compared with folks in San Jose. Good in theory but bad in practice since the whole the senior management sitting in San Jose mostly decides all the appraisals. Don't expect a lot of participation from Chennai in senior management. The management in Chennai has very little authority when it comes to your career options or survival in the company. Or perhaps, they have no stakes in the matter (there is no transparency at work). There are so many managers within the PayPal organization, that don't represent a great model of management. eBay behaviours are mere statements and i have not seen them followed in spirit by most managers in my hierarchy. There are so many senior folks that travel frequently from San Jose to Chennai. The motivator for young engineers is onsite travel which gets affected because of those travels. In PayPal, you decide the appraisal rating and then write the review for an employee based on the rating arrived at. Really weird. The funny thing is that the management insists on finishing the reviews from the lower level folks but never get it done for themselves. Not a nice model when it is not practised at every level. Some managers in San Jose just don't have the maturity to deal with people under them. They are just not experienced to be global managers. There have been a variety of contextual situations in support of this. If you work in Chennai, expect to be given instructions from San Jose on what needs to be done.

Explore other reviews about PayPal

5.0
15 May 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good company to work for, good work life balance

Cons

They should have more developers than other titles.

2.0
13 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

PayPal has a lot of potential. It has two very strong brands in PayPal and Venmo with significant awareness and user bases that other companies envy. There are pockets of teams that are really pushing the envelop to reimagine what PayPal and Venmo could be—especially the Venmo team—and to move with speed given the company must stay focused and not waste time with Apple Pay, Shop Pay, and so many other competitors nipping at PayPal's heels and aggressively taking market share.

Cons

While some teams are pushing to self-disrupt and are moving fast, too many teams—and I'd argue the majority of the company–are living off of PayPal's laurels from the late 2010s through the pandemic. The culture and mindset have to change for the company to remain competitive. Otherwise, they are the Titanic and they're sinking slowly. The former CEO who only last 2 years tried diversifying the company's revenue, planning for the future. But the board and its former chairman (now new CEO) felt he wasn't moving fast enough to stabilize and marketshare. Instead, the board hired the former chairman who made computers and printers at HP—another sinking ship—to lead the oldest fintech company. The loss of confidence in the leadership team and the strategy are only accelerating.

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