Baristas, video games and yoga: Inside Credit Karma’s new $13 million Charlotte HQ

Credit Karma has hired hundreds of people since last summer as the fintech company prepares to officially open its new East Coast headquarters in Ballantyne on Thursday.

The Silicon Valley-based personal finance company said last May it is spending $13 million and adding 600 jobs over the next five years in Charlotte. Credit Karma’s south Charlotte expansion includes 95,000 square feet with the top three floors of the 10-story building at 13146 Ballantyne Corporate Place.

The building is called Overlook because it overlooks part of the Ballantyne Reimagined development where the once-popular golf course is being transformed into a park with an amphitheater and mix of retail and restaurants.

Credit Karma employees began returning to the office Feb. 28 at the old space across the street in Ballantyne and in portions of the new building while construction continues. But the new headquarters officially opens Thursday, chief people officer Colleen McCreary told The Charlotte Observer.

“We are an in-office culture,” she said.

The office has a relaxed “flip-flops and T-shirt” vibe, McCreary said, and boasts amenities including baristas serving free coffee, as well as a game room and music room. The company provided the Observer with an exclusive tour recently.

“Coming back post-pandemic it’s nice to do things together again,” mobile software engineer Payne Miller said during the tour.

Credit Karma opened its East Coast office across the parking lot from the new building five years ago with 25 employees and grew to 200 by last year. Since ramping up hiring last summer, Credit Karma has more than doubled that number to 450 full-time employees in Charlotte, McCreary said.

The new office has space for 800 workers, meaning several hundred more people could be hired over the next few years.

Hiring in fintech is competitive, McCreary said, but there has been no shortage of applications for the Charlotte office. Jobs with Credit Karma include software engineering, security fraud, project management, data and other technical roles.

“Charlotte has a unique opportunity of having people both already in the finance industry but also the sort of burgeoning tech industry,” McCreary said.

The San Francisco- based company opened in 2007 and has more than 1,500 employees nationwide.

Company founder and CEO Ken Lin will be in Charlotte Thursday afternoon for official opening events at the headquarters, along with Gov. Roy Cooper and others.

Inside Credit Karma’s new office

The new Ballantyne office offers expansive views from uptown Charlotte to Carowinds.

Like other fintech companies such as Lending Tree, which opened its new offices in June in South End, Credit Karma employees are seeing lots of amenities in the office space.

Charlotte workers helped develop the themes of the new Ballantyne office, McCreary said.

Each floor represents a season with color and decor. The multiple meeting rooms on each floor also share regional North Carolina themes, named for native trees and local destinations, for example.

And each floor has murals and artwork by more than 10 Charlotte and North Carolina artists.

Along with open office floor plans with electric desks that can be raised for standing, there also are fully stocked kitchens and bars, plus several wellness areas, including prayer and meditation rooms.

Kitchens on each floor are stocked with drinks and snacks, many made locally and in North Carolina. Cafe 704 on the 10th floor is staffed with baristas serving free coffee with beans roasted locally.

“Especially if you’re going to ask people to come back into the office, you want to make it a place that they want to come to,” McCreary said.

Some Credit Karma office perks

Amenity highlights on each floor include:

▪ 10th floor: The top floor includes an outdoor patio overlooking where the amphitheater and park are under construction. There’s a cafe with living plant walls that represent Queens Road. The patio overlooks the park under construction. Conference rooms are named for art and sculptures like “The Firebird” that is in uptown in front of Knight Theater.

▪ Ninth floor: Along with quiet rooms and showers, there’s a “pop-up” snack room with a Carolina cabin vibe and wooden rocking chairs. This floor includes phone booths for private calls and wellness rooms for massages and yoga. There’s a library and bonus poker room.

▪ Eighth floor: The ice bar includes a game room with video arcade games, ping pong table and foosball and beer on tap. There’s also a music room and the lodge, a large gathering space for weekly staff meetings and events with a large, fully stocked bar.

This story was originally published April 21, 2022 at 6:00 AM with the headline "Baristas, video games and yoga: Inside Credit Karma’s new $13 million Charlotte HQ."