Such a huge organisation is often riddled with confusing and sometimes unecessary beaurocracy - it's a truly 'German' bank in that sense. A one size fits all approach to process and strategy is sometimes unhelpful when trying to push through critical changes rapidly.
There are also still too many middle-aged, unskilled employees, particularly in the US and Continental Europe (this is not the case in London or Asia-Pacific) who tend to be obstructive and miserable. Many of these have been pushed out via outsourcing, but too many remain in lower/middle management roles.
Compensation can range from being market-leading to insulting. If you stay much beyond 5 years, you're likely to fall very far behind the market and although this is probably true of many companies, at DB there is an almost complacent attitude towards this issue. It results in a brain-drain amongst the most dynamic middle-managers (VP/Director) especially if they have come up from Associate or AVP level at the bank. It also means the dead-wood I mentioned earlier are even less likely to be pushed out.
Finally the outsourcing of many roles lead to a collapse of moral in many parts of operations, especially in NY and London. Although much of the basic work is done outside of the high-cost locations, such as Bangalor and Mumbai in India, Birmingham in the UK and soon Jacksonville, FL, the real glue behind the work remains in the hands of a few over-worked and under-valued people who have stayed behind to pick up the peices.
