Pros
- Good compensation/benefits/pension, especially for outside London - For a large financial company, relatively modern values/attitudes (at face value at least), tech (they really invest in tech) - There's a lot of great people and good managers - Offices are mostly nice with lots of investment - Lots of learning opportunities, common to train e.g. software engineers out from the branch staff
Cons
- Constant rounds of redundancy, noone is really safe. Branch closures make the news, but on the tech side there is a huge outsourcing push to India. - A lot of politics - becomes "who you know" at much lower grades than most companies. - Your job is to get directors to achieve their targets so they get their big bonuses, even if meeting these targets compromises everything from your mental health to customer outcomes. - The above points mean most people are driven by covering their own backs, and doing blame games when things go wrong. - There's also as many bad managers as good, who don't align to the values but are never challenged on this.