Incredibly toxic work environment, at most levels.
In no particular order, these are some of the negatives I witnessed/experienced whilst working at Citibank:
- It is normal to send out an email and get berated and belittled in a chain for doing nothing more than sending out a template you were requested to. Management often justify this with "oh, ignore [them], they're like that!" Why should this be tolerated anywhere?
- It is normal to be expected to work well outside your core hours, with no sympathy from management, no recognition of it, or even an extension of help for late work coming in that has to be completed due to regulatory deadlines. I was once met with (from my own manager) "Is this your first time staying on late? Well, you should be so lucky."
- Some people want to help resolve work-related issues, but they are few and far between. It is largely a culture of palming work off to another team with no effort to try and get it resolved- until it eventually comes back around to you for the 5th time.
- The culture of stepping over anyone and everyone possible in order to get to the "top" is very much alive and well. What I assume would be otherwise nice people (in some instances) treat you incredibly poorly as a result of this.
- Despite being in a team, you can expect to be somewhat isolated, as work is rarely ever a collaborative effort.
- Expect no training of any kind. I didn't mind being thrown in the deep end, but I can imagine it could cause what might be otherwise fine employees to fail.
- People with no emotional intelligence can get into positions that should require at least a modicum of it.
I could go on. Everyone's experience is different. However, given the size of Citi's employment pool in Belfast, I'm willing to bet if you speak to enough people you will eventually hear incredibly similar points as those I have made above.
Also, the pay isn't very competitive compared to other, smaller tech/FinTech companies.
