This company has A lot of potential, but SO MANY cons. Everything listed below is just my opinion, and is not even fully every con I experienced there (way too many to list)
Leadership - Can be rude and disrespectful at times and they seem to not even know how to relate to people. I was unhappy at Apto for quite some time, so I decided to go to my manager to let him know that I did not feel valued and that I also felt severely underappreciated and underworked. His response was that he had been through the same thing in past jobs but if you're patient, things can get better. That was a LEADER'S response?? Essentially telling me that "it happens!" No. Completely unacceptable. I also asked this same manager if we could come up with some sort of a personal development plan for myself so that I could have some type of goal to work towards in hopes of a promotion and he told me no because "we are a startup and things change here weekly." Okay, so not only are you not listening to how I feel, but you're denying me the chance to even come up with some type of plan so I can excel here? OKAY. The theme of leaders being rude and defensive spreads across the company and is just not limited to one leader.
Leaders give promotions and add responsibilities with no notice, no pay increase, or a change in title to reflect the new role. I had a coworker get pushed into a manager position without any leaders asking him if it's something he wanted to do first. He did not get a pay raise to have people under him, nor did he get a new title to reflect that he was now a manager. When a senior leader was asked about why there was no pay increase or title change, they responded with "well, cooks don't become chefs overnight!" and eluded to the fact that people need to "earn their authority there." Sounds to me like a way to just get someone to do extra work for free.
Leaders hire their friends from past jobs without formally posting a job requisition. Why not post a job requisition and let other people internally apply for the job, or even let outside people apply? So, just because someone is a senior leader, that means they can just hire their friends willy nilly into the company, even if there is someone already there that might be qualified? How is that fair?
Numerous times I had leaders talk over me and get defensive when trying to bring things to their attention regarding the company. There is a severe lack of listening skills within the leaders of Apto Payments. Sure, some of them are very nice and do indeed listen, but in my experience, my direct leaders did not care about me and it was pretty obvious. Not sure what I did to them, but whatever.
This company pretends to be a cool and hip start up, but they definitely have some issues that make it feel more like a large corporation than anything. I have never worked at a more toxic place before. It's absolutely insane how some of these "leaders" act. Not only are the leaders weird, but just also super disorganized. We had projects sometimes we would work on for weeks, only for them to get shut down without an explanation as to why. It makes no sense.
I'd say that if you don't care about getting treated fairly and just want good pay to start, then Apto is the place for you! If you want to work at a place that values inclusion and respects everyone's time and opinion, definitely look elsewhere. Also, I would not suggest working here if you thrive more in a setting that is organized. A lot of people don't even know what their actual job description is, so they just wing it.