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Chad West, Revolut’s outspoken director of global marketing and communications, is set to leave the $5.5bn digital bank for a new challenge.

And he is not the only high profile departure. Irina Scarlat, Revolut’s soon-to-depart global head of growth, is also going after three years in the job, saying she feels completely worn out by the experience (even though she enjoyed it).

“Three years on the rocketship feel like dog years in normal time,” she wrote in a Medium post. “This is the true reason why the median tenure in a tech startup is two years. I feel like I’ve run a marathon with the speed of a sprint.”

The departures got us thinking: what do employees think about working for Revolut?

Over the past few years, we’ve seen enough stories about Revolut’s pressure-cooker working conditions to suggest the startup isn’t for everyone, but certain types seem drawn to it for the very reason that others are repelled.

The responses below, shared confidentially with Sifted by past and present Revolut employees, give a flavour of life aboard the “rocketship”.

On speed:

• “It’s a beast and puts you in a mindset of how to do things quickly and how to solve problems.”
• “I don’t think we have a secret recipe for success, the engineers are just some of the best I’ve worked with. Product is so fast.”

On pressure:

•  “A lot of people don’t often know what they’re getting into. And what I mean is it’s never going to be a nine-to-five. I think a lot of people struggle with that mentality of I’m going to be working 12, 13, 14-hour days, and if something comes up at the weekend, I’m going to be on that.”
• “I think ultimately that pretty much is the culture, even to this day. Revolut is still a culture where people work hard, longer than nine to five. It’s still a very, very data-driven, KPI-driven environment.”

On progression:

• “Many people bail out in a year. They use it as a stepping stone to get somewhere else.”
• “The ones who will go on to do things by themselves are definitely the operations managers. They learn to drive and build things from scratch. They are truly the smart ones. Imagine a group of mini Alans [Alan Chang, SVP Revenue & Operations] running around.”
• “I think there are people who think, ‘you know what, Revolut might be a stepping stone for me.’ Maybe they’re working for a big bank in a middle management role.”

On change:

• “I think Revolut is institutionalising, which is a really good thing. I think it’s no longer a growth hacker’s paradise, and the growth and marketing professionals needed are people who have managed big budgets and scaled institutions.”
• “Revolut is not what it was anymore on the opportunity side. More of a corporation like Netflix.”