| I live in NYC so many of my friends and colleagues have had tech jobs in the well known banks. Here are some of the data points I've collected. Person 1 says there is a lot of politics, ass-covering, and throwing under the bus Persons 2 and 3 says back in the 80s and 90s there were a lot of exciting projects, but now it's all maintenance work and making sure money train does not stop. Person 4 says at his company they tracked how much money your bugs cost the firm, and at the end of the year if that number is too high, you're fired. Person 5 corroborates what Person 4 said, adding that no one is allowed to touch production -- you touch production and you might cause an outage in some part of the company you never heard of, next thing that happens is Security shows up at your desk with cardboard boxes telling you to pack your stuff. Person 6 says for the same reasons no one is allowed to touch the base classes you inherit from -- people just make their own copy of the base class and make their changes to it. The code base is littered with many copies of the same file each different in its own way. Person 7 flat out told me "you are too nice, you will get eaten alive at a financial services firm" Person 8 says he was not allowed to talk to or collaborate with a colleague because they worked for competing managers, they had to leave the office to collaborate |
As someone who almost never ships a bug but is a bit slower because of that, I would love it ;)