American Express reviews

Base pay at Amex is really poor and the internal mechanisms to assess equity are outdated and way too slow. Having good benefits is just one thing that makes a great place to work great. Amex's compensation philosophy is to pay below the market and compensate with benefits. But to be truly effective the benefits package lacks flexibility (childcare allowances are only useful if you have a child). Therefore, the company should update it's salary position, become more competitive as far as base pay goes, and re think its benefits package to make it more suitable to different employee populations.

Comp is definitely below industry standards, but given the tremendous opportunity for work/life balance, AXP can afford to pay less since the roles are generally in strong demand in the market. The company's highly matrixed and consensus driven culture allows people at all levels to be involved in discussions on a wide array of topics (particularly nice for development of problem solving/business judgment as a junior person), but often leads to slow decision making that results in the firm missing major market opportunities.