Visa Inc. reviews

3.8

68% would recommend to a friend

(7,526 total reviews)
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Ryan Mclenerney

67% approve of CEO

68% positive business outlook

Visa Inc. has an employee rating of 3.8 out of 5 stars, based on 7,526 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Visa Inc. employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Tecnologia da informação industry (3.9 stars).

Reviews by job title

8K reviews
2.0
Jul 18, 2015
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

One of the main reasons to work at Visa is that it is a "safe" employer. They never get rid of anyone. Even if you are underperforming as an individual contributor, the bonuses and compensation are not really tied to your performance because everyone basically gets an "average". Also, there are plenty of reasons not to get something done. You can always point at another department and say "I couldn't finish my thing because I was blocked by someone over in ...". If you keep your head down, don't make any noise but show up for work and meetings, you will continue to draw a paycheck for as long as you want.

Cons

But if you want to innovate, don't believe anything they say about it. We've been told for over a year to change our methodology to Agile. The result? The groups who are successful at it (especially in my org under Loyalty) were buried UNDER another team that is waterfall and will remain so... while folks that were taking pot-shots at us got moved up. The majority of our work is done by BPO outsourcing but none of our vendors are effective. We have roughly a 1:4 ratio of FTE to BPO in my org. It takes one FTE to lead a team of 4 BPO and the BPO doesn't get the work done. So we are paying 5 people to do the work of 1 FTE. Why do we keep doing it? Because the executives with the biggest budgets get the biggest bonuses. Adopting new technologies is a sure path to corporate death. It is a company full of seagull architects who "swoop down, poop on everything and fly away". The company has armies of architects who aren't responsible for delivering value but if they approve something they feel they own it. So they say "no" in an effort to keep the amount of work they have to do at a minimum. This is plainly clear in their last employee survey which pointed out that they #1 challenge to their employees was getting work done. As soon as that was announced, the security team launched a pilot to remove admin rights from developers laptops so that they need to ask approval to do things such as look at environment variables, check their system load or profile their machine's performance. How insane is that?!?!?!? I have worked at Visa for 4 years and as of this week finally reached my limit. I am on my way out and 4 top engineers I work with have already asked me to try to find a place where they can follow.

1.0
Jun 6, 2015
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

Industry leader . Good domain and technology to work with. No dearth of money Compensation is good.

Cons

They opened recently in India and most of the top level employees specially in Mobile are converts from Visa Vendors which are mostly service based companies . These employees in turn has brought in here the labor culture of their parent companies and created own lobbies . Employees who are not from these companies are sidelined completely and has absolute zero visibility. These vendor converts further trying to ensure that they convert more people from their previous companies and making life difficult for the non vendors so that they leave the organization.. You may be told about some job profile during interview but when you join finally will be given some other work, There is complete chaos . US employees are completely cut off and don't bother and hence everything is run by these vendor employees who have tactic support of US bosses since they have good hold on these products.

3.0
Jan 9, 2023
Recommend
Business Outlook

Pros

The products and services are quite good, VisaNet reliability is phenomenal. Visa is indeed accepted almost everywhere. In terms of Fraud and Security, they don't hesitate to invest in resources and people to protect their network and brand. Paying with Visa is super safe and I have been proud of working for such a great organisation. The company offers great training, coaching, resources and volunteering opportunities. There's no time to get bored. Depending on the role or department, you can get involved in large international projects which can be quite interesting. If you have children, Visa is the place for you. They love families and provide benefits and concierge services for all ages. Not so good for young professionals looking for a vibrant culture. The work environment is quite dull. It is a company mainly geared towards employees with families. You may find the opportunity to work along well known financial institutions, it is a great place to develop a network of contacts. They are finally trying to offer a competitive salary but other players with less financial resources are willing to pay higher rates.

Cons

Some people at Visa have been there for over 20 years and have a really old-fashioned approach to work. I doubt they would be employable in similar roles if they leave the organisation as they live in silo mode. It is a Top-to-down management decision-making organisation whereby employees have no say. Matrix hierarchy which doesn't help with accountability, because everyone is a "leader", but when it comes to executing my decisions, I am reminded of my inferior role. Career development is amazing (courses, training) but career progression is non existent. Hence why some individuals are seen doing the same exact job for years and complain when new starters try to get help from them. It is extremely rare when internal staff move to internal positions of higher ranking. The only option is to move horizontally, but it also means you have to change your specialisation. Therefore, instead of having the best professionals of a particular function, they invite you to go for another different role, as if any of us have any opportunity to become the next COO. It is by far the messiest organisation I have ever worked for. Trying to find information is full day job, be prepared to ask the same question to five people and get five different answers. Only people with great muscle memory should apply for a job at Visa, as there are no processes or procedures in most cases, and if there are, good luck with finding what and where they are. Normally, these are quite complex jobs, but Leaders seem to believe we are all easily replaceable as they couldn't care less if you leave. Silo mentalities and lack of collaboration are part of the organisational ethos. The disconnection between Senior Leaders and the Team are abysmal. Many Leaders with lots of experience in managing large organisations, lots of town halls and good words, great communicators, but when it comes to the day to day we are left on our own. They want us to be faster yet laptops are very old, disruptive, slow, the laptop can freeze when typing an email! It seriously feels like Leaders provide the instructions and walk away, waiting for results. You are on your own and are expected to do your job plus fix everything else that doesn't work. Goals are entirely unrealistic and the only way to achieve them is by getting rid of the flexibility they claim to give, by working long hours. They have now introduced micro-management by checking results on a quarterly basis. They need to look beyond numbers, unfortunately they don't. As many other companies, they also want us 3 days a week at the office which hinders are productivity. If Face-2-Face is so important, why aren't we visiting our clients? They claim RTO is important for their culture, yet hot-desking couldn't be messier, the team can't sit together so not sure what the point of RTO is. Plus for a company claiming to be concerned about ecology, they should be aware that commuting impacts our carbon footprint in the planet, yet "company culture" is more important. Lack of planning is rampant, Leaders are also too busy trying to join 20 meetings a day, forgetting about their teams. The organisation gets messier and messier everyday. It does feel like nobody cares and the day to day consists of putting out fires. They really need more people managers, but specific to the functional strategy of the team, someone who can do the job of the team, not just supervise then. It is astonishing that they care so little about the quality of their organisational structure and then wonder why everything is so slow. In terms of work environment, it is entirely corporative, no team building activities, be prepared to be at your desk without speaking to anyone for the entire day. Lots of Yes-Sir people not able to bring their voice for fear of retaliation. Some of them react dramatically if you criticise anything about the organisation. My advice is to work for Visa if you can but leave before you become complacent. It is a great place to learn and grow, don't hesitate to apply for a role, but once you learnt everything about your role, be ready to move on to another organisation, as career progression simply won't happen. Work environment feels quite toxic at the moment and you shouldn't put a price on your mental health.

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