Take the negative reviews seriously - Anonymous employee Airwallex Employee Review

1.0
1 Aug 2022
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Took the negative reviews on Glassdoor with a grain of salt, joined the new US team and thought I would be further removed from some of the issues raised in the negative reviews, but I was wrong. -A cool product, but in a very competitive and saturated market. -Platform and API product is superior to all the other offerings. -The markets outside of the US will continue to do well with business account product. -If you're lucky, you might be removed from a lot of the issues and work with a great team and manager.

Cons

-Inexperienced leaders tasked to lead full go-to-market strategy in brand new markets, leading sales reps, marketing teams, partnership reps, strategy analysts, and other role. Barely having any experience in these roles or departments themselves and no fintech background. -The CEO controls everything - who gets hired, fired, money people make, where money is spent, etc. -A new global head of talent and a global head of people were separately hired in 2021 each left within a few months - possibly because they have no freedom to run their teams, but it's very concerning to see. -Very toxic culture that doesn’t care about their people at all. -They have no desire to spend money in the US even though it's the largest market in the world. The reason was because revenue is lower in the US (as it should be in a new market), so they can't justify a lot of spend there, even though it would only help the US revenue growth. Was told the CEO doesn't believe in brand and marketing. -Continuous delayed product launches for new features. -Sales comp plans are non-existent. No clear goals, fake offer letters, thrown together comp plans, with no intention of paying for your work. -No transparency and no accountability. Raising concerns and issues go no where, there is no real HR and everything rolls back up to the CEO. So if bring something to management’s attention, it will go no where and will likely be used against you. -They don’t like to fire people so that they don’t have to pay severance or unemployment. They have tactics to help push people out so that they quit on their own. -Leadership style is extreme micromanagement and autocratic. The CEO has at least 80 direct reports (at a 900+ person company). -Internal processes and communication with the company being international is not sustainable. -Promoting within doesn’t happen very often, people with good experience are brought in and then their opinions and expertise are ignored. They continue to hire inexperienced people externally with consulting and MBA backgrounds to lead departments. -They level everyone lower so that they can pay people less. -All the negative comments have a response referring to a new engagement platform, Lattice, that was put in place. But it hasn’t been adopted or used at all. -Performance reviews were not a 2 way review…no upwards review or feedback on your manager, just your manager reviewing you which is very concerning at a 900+ person company. -Extremely high turnover, higher than the average, over 20%. It is really sad to see how many people were genuinely excited to join this company and how many of these people are gone before a year because no job or company is worth deteriorating your mental health for. I know sometimes Glassdoor is filled with fluffy positive reviews or disgruntled angry employees after they leave (hence why I took them with a grain of salt), but these are facts and they extremely concerning. Every company has their issues and sometimes people just aren’t a fit and a works for others, but I’m writing this to help anyone who might be on the fence. Maybe some things have changed or are changing from what is stated above, it's definitely worth digging into these if you're considering this company.

Explore other reviews about Airwallex

5.0
27 Apr 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

1. Amazing product with strong fit in a handful of verticals 2. Team is top notch, brightest minds in fintech 3. A ton of room to grow, both for individuals and the company on the whole

Cons

1. Leadership is scattered throughout the world and has different priorities 2. Stop chasing the new shiny object and stick with what works and what got us here

1.0
15 June 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Good comp and lunch provided via forkable.

Cons

Insanely high number of voluntary resignations, poor work/life balance and progress is slowed due to the concentration of key decision makers based in APAC who work with teams within the United States and EMEA.

2
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