Weak Leadership - Senior Marketing Associate Discover Employee Review

2.0
Nov 6, 2014
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Just started the Work from home policy this year, as well as the downtown office. Needless to say this was done to retain talent and compete with other companies in the neighborhood who had the downtown and work from home facilities way back. PTO is a decent number, lots of activities on campus. Benefits are good, people are helpful, happy family culture is supported

Cons

Discover needs fresh talent and outside world perspective (technology, social media, brand image). Documentation processes are outdated and unorganized. There is no on the job training for people transitioning into new roles, given the fact that trying out new roles is encouraged to the highest degree. Management is somewhat lost and direction is not good. People are very big on the blame game, since everyone is always moving around, it gets frustrating getting things done as some one or the other has "just moved in". Rather than making sure that thorough controls and research goes into projects, people are more focused on correcting blunders and operational errors. Favoritism is extremely rampant to the point that you will be made manager (no college degree required) if you are a favorite, compared to a candidate with credentials such as a Masters degree and work experience from other places. HR is absolutely insufficient when it comes to talent management and compensation brackets. A person who has been with Discover for some time can get paid lower than a person who just came in on a junior position. Biggest shocker is that 99% Discover employees use and prefer Visa MasterCard and American Express. Shows how much they value their own product and how how hard they are working to make it the best.

Explore other reviews about Discover

5.0
Jun 8, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

It was a great work-life balance company.

Cons

After the acquisition, everything changed; the company became toxic by Capital One

5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

One of the most significant advantages of interning at Discover is the opportunity to work with massive, high-stakes financial datasets within a highly collaborative and mentorship-driven culture. Because the company manages millions of consumer accounts, you gain direct experience in how data-driven decisions impact risk management, credit modeling, and fraud detection in real time. The environment is known for being supportive of early-career professionals, offering structured learning paths and exposure to modern cloud-native infrastructures like AWS. Furthermore, the company’s strong focus on work-life balance and a clear pipeline for converting interns to full-time roles makes it an excellent "foot in the door" for anyone looking to build a career in fintech.

Cons

On the other hand, the primary drawback often stems from the inherent bureaucracy and heavy regulation of the banking industry, which can lead to slower project lifecycles and "red tape." You may find that a significant portion of your time is spent on repetitive data cleaning and maintaining legacy reporting systems rather than building the cutting-edge predictive models you might expect. Additionally, because Discover is a massive organization, your scope of work can sometimes feel siloed, making it difficult to see the end-to-end impact of your analysis across different departments. Finally, the current landscape of the industry means that internal shifts or large-scale corporate restructuring can occasionally lead to uncertainty regarding team directions or long-term project stability.

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