Pros
-Youthful spirit because of all the college hires -Some employees are good and stay because of a comfortable grandfathered salary -You get thrown into the fire really quickly so can be nice for getting relevant tech XP -401k match and other benefits are pretty good
Cons
You’ve most likely arrived at this review, of this position, at this company, because you are a prospective TC candidate looking to join the Client Services (CS) department of Paytronix. Let’s be very clear from the beginning: the PX CS department is great for getting your first 18 months in the professional workplace on paper, but that’s about it. You’ll emerge from the other end having minimized your acquisition of new marketable skills, and having maximized your levels of professional and personal stress. If you remember nothing else of this review: when confronted with the 20-25% (not a typo) yearly employee churn rate of the CS department caused by the culture I am about to explain, the CEO of the company suggested that this was within their yearly projections for CS churn, and therefore no serious cultural revisions were required. Let’s break it down: TC Role coming out of college New College Grads are the raw resources that feed the machine. A lot of other reviews (please go read them) covered this in detail, just know that the details are true. You will be on call roughly 2-3 weeks of the year, responsible for tier 2 24/7 support of the Paytronix platform, and you will be compensated one vacation day per week. You will be encouraged (but not forced) to work more than 40 hours a week, since your client load will balloon within your first few months due to the astronomical churn rate of good TCs. On my way out, new TCs with 6 months or less of experience were expected to handle 10-15 enterprise clients on minimal training and thin understanding of the product. Which brings us to the next section: The Product As soon as 5 years ago, Paytronix was an industry leader because of its rock solid integrations to legacy POS (point of sale) systems including Micros Aloha and Positouch. Well, guess who in the restaurant industry still cares about rock solid integrations to legacy POS systems in 2020? The landscape of restaurant tech has changed drastically as restaurant chains begin to embrace big data and digital experiences. Paytronix was slow to move in this arena, and the product you support reveals this fact. You will be hired as the primary product consultant for your client load, and you will be expected to provide highly specialized guidance on waning legacy systems (POS, physical gift cards etc) as well as Paytronix’s modern tech (mobile apps, API integrations). This story alone isn’t necessarily an issue, and in fact is characteristic of most modern tech companies. Where Paytronix lacks is in their execution. All roads lead to the TC getting screwed. Products are released broken, buggy, and unsupported, and you will be expected to provide frontline support against “angry” clients to prevent them from churning. The product team is some of the hardest working at the PX, and truly do make a great attempt at listening to the client base, but in the end they are hamstrung by the fact that all major product decisions are made by the founder and CEO. Which brings us to the final section: The Culture Paytronix has a pervasive and disappointing top-down culture, it was the reason I left the company, and it is the reason why you shouldn’t join. Managers in CS exist only to fulfill the will of the highest leadership, which is to maximize client load while minimizing costs. There is no forward thinking in terms of planning for growth, CS is a giant Rube Goldberg machine that gets complicated stages added to it every day. The CEO maintains an iron grip on nearly all decisions made in the company, but especially the ones centered around product and engineering. Out-of-the-box thinking will be punished if it doesn’t fall in line with leadership vision. In Conclusion Having worked there for the better part of a decade, I was able to watch this sad story unfold. At a time, I was the biggest champion of Paytronix as both an employee and a fan of the product. This unfortunately faded as attention was shifted away from the people of Paytronix, and into the maximization of profit. Around 2 years ago, Paytronix was acquired by an investment firm Great Hill Partners. Great Hill Partners is the same firm that gutted the beloved Deadspin in its quest for profit. I make no solid claims that these two are connected, but the coincidence in the decline of the culture is uncanny. After your honeymoon period, working for Paytronix will be an exercise in staying afloat while you find your next opportunity. This review suggests not to try it in the first place.