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I did a job interview at Citibank a number of years ago, for an IT security position, and the thing I remember most was walking through the office and seeing a

I did a job interview at Citibank a number of years ago, for an IT security position, and the thing I remember most was walking through the office and seeing a well used copy of Computer Security For Dummies on every desk. That reminded me of a past position at Chase where our group’s head of IT security was a former bricklayer, with no technical background, who was never without his copy of Computer Security for Dummies, and was forever trying to find out where we were “hiding our NFS”. We always tried to tell him that we didn’t use NFS and he would always counter that he didn’t buy it, and he knew we had one and that we were hiding it from him. Ok. Chase and Citigroup are like the McDonalds of financial services, everyone works there once, the talented people leave, the ones who stay generally lack the confidence or ability to do likewise, and they are a PITA to work for because they live in constant fear of being out shown. I really wouldn’t recommend working at any of the big banks, they are thankless soul crushing jobs, and you’ll forever be working on what everyone else was doing ten years ago.

dontbenebby 4y ago
>Chase and Citigroup are like the McDonalds of financial services, everyone works there once, the talented people leave, the ones who stay generally lack the confidence or ability to do likewise, and they are a PITA to work for Thanks, this explains the experience I had interviewing with Chase. I have never ghosted an entire company before, let alone walked into a bank branch to tell them to get their computer doctors to learn to be respectful in a job interview. On my end, I'd hoped it might be a cultural fit since I think many big tech companies have insider threats because they don't allow people to truly take time off -- it's common in the finance world to force someone to take a vacation at least once a year for fraud prevention. (The idea being your scam requires your constant presence, it will fall apart.)
- bigie35 4y ago
  I will say, having worked at Capital one in the past, that it is the outlier here. They have a really strong tech focused culture and from my experience, rarely outsource their tech teams. To drive this point home, they're creating a whole new business based on the expertise they developed with Snowflake. https://www.forbes.com/sites/martingiles/2022/06/01/capitsl-one-enters-b2b-software-industry/?sh=15697cb12d6b https://www.forbes.com/sites/martingiles/2022/06/01/capitsl-...
bradwood 4y ago
> you’ll forever be working on what everyone else was doing ten years ago. This. I've spend over 20 years working in banks. DB, BAML, UBS, Barclays, BNPP to name a few. They all suck for good tech. In the 90s and 00s it was a cool place to go. Cash was flowing, algo trading was the new hotness, everyone was making good money and building cool shit. Post 2008 crisis that all went to hell. No more cool shit, only regulatory knee jerk bolt-ons, turd polishing, and budget cuts. It's never really got any better since then.

dontbenebby 4y ago

>Chase and Citigroup are like the McDonalds of financial services, everyone works there once, the talented people leave, the ones who stay generally lack the confidence or ability to do likewise, and they are a PITA to work for Thanks, this explains the experience I had interviewing with Chase. I have never ghosted an entire company before, let alone walked into a bank branch to tell them to get their computer doctors to learn to be respectful in a job interview. On my end, I'd hoped it might be a cultural fit since I think many big tech companies have insider threats because they don't allow people to truly take time off -- it's common in the finance world to force someone to take a vacation at least once a year for fraud prevention. (The idea being your scam requires your constant presence, it will fall apart.)

bigie35 4y ago
I will say, having worked at Capital one in the past, that it is the outlier here. They have a really strong tech focused culture and from my experience, rarely outsource their tech teams. To drive this point home, they're creating a whole new business based on the expertise they developed with Snowflake. https://www.forbes.com/sites/martingiles/2022/06/01/capitsl-one-enters-b2b-software-industry/?sh=15697cb12d6b https://www.forbes.com/sites/martingiles/2022/06/01/capitsl-...

bradwood 4y ago

> you’ll forever be working on what everyone else was doing ten years ago. This. I've spend over 20 years working in banks. DB, BAML, UBS, Barclays, BNPP to name a few. They all suck for good tech. In the 90s and 00s it was a cool place to go. Cash was flowing, algo trading was the new hotness, everyone was making good money and building cool shit. Post 2008 crisis that all went to hell. No more cool shit, only regulatory knee jerk bolt-ons, turd polishing, and budget cuts. It's never really got any better since then.