Eight months in. Here's what I actually think, as someone who came from a large FAANG and expected something similar.
The good:
The mission alignment is more genuine than I expected. The crypto-native team genuinely believes in what they're building. At my old employer the mission was aspirational marketing copy. Here people are actually talking about the protocol layer at lunch. If you care about crypto as a technology that's energizing. If you're just there for the paycheck it might feel like a cult.
The org is smaller than people realize. Getting things done cross-functionally is faster. I shipped something in my second month that at my old employer would have taken a full quarter of alignment meetings.
The harder parts:
The market volatility affects morale in ways nobody fully prepares you for. When COIN drops 20% in a week, you feel it in Slack. People get edgy. The energy in the building (or the remote channels) tracks the price. That's exhausting over time.
Hours: it's not the 60-hour-week grind of a pre-IPO startup. But it's not the cushy paced 45-hour FAANG experience either. I'd call it real 50 hours in practice. Some teams are hotter than others.
PTO policy is technically generous but the culture doesn't always back it. This varies a lot by team and manager. My manager actively encourages time off. I know others whose managers are more implicitly demanding.
Remote culture: most of my team is distributed. The async culture is solid. There are quarterly offsites which are actually well-run and useful.
Overall: if you're a person who would be energized by crypto-native work, Coinbase has good culture. if you want a chill big-tech-stability vibe, it's probably not the right fit.