BNP Paribas reviews

Promotions are based on politics, bonuses and salary increases non-existent (your starting salary will stay with you for quite some time). Managers take credit for subordinates work but blame them for failures. The business (fixed income) treat IT like children and IT management are too weak to work towards an effective partnership with the business. Occasionally they pay lip service to innovation by spending a fortune on expensive consultants because they don't believe the same stuff when it comes from their own staff. On a technical note, the IT infrastructure is stuck in the last decade - impossible to get hold of hardware, impossible to innovate due to tightly controlled desktop/server builds, the outright ban on cloud infrastructure means we will always be last in the race to deliver new features. (c.f. 15 minutes for a new VM in Azure v.s. 2 weeks for the same in BNPP).

There was constant tension with Paris or London, who tried to micro-manage every decision or client relationship. They kept people around who never made money, were terrified of making decisions, and hid themselves in layers of opaque management. They also fired people who did make money because they either didn't fit into the culture or challenged management. It was bizarre at times.