I am looking for a job in the banking/ financial services/ Fintech (capital one, JP Morgan Chase etc.), I am pretty new to the space and trying to learn more. Please can anyone help me! Below are few of my questions: 1) what is the culture like? 2) what is valued in these companies? 3) is it hierarchial or more bottoms up in decision making 4) as an outsider I have thought it is predominently white men at the top, is it true? 5) what is the average tenure 6) why is everyone a VP, is it equivalent to ic5 or M1 in tech leveling? No tc as I was laid off recently! #interview #finance
I can speak for CitiBank/Citicorp experience 1) Culture - Generally nice people who value work life balance more. Good job security. 2) Valued? - Well, the ability to satisfy the stakeholders. 3) Decisions are mostly hierarchical, though they are also willing to listen to those at the bottom of the pyramid in some technical areas. 4) No. It is the otherway around. There is a recent trend where many women occupy the top in several teams, especially in Citi. The CEO is also a woman. 5) No idea. 6) Oh well, role name!=designation name. An SSE usually has the designation of Assistant manager or manager. A team or group lead may have Assistant Vice President / Vice president depending on their experience.
Thank you!
Citi has very low standard people. Its true they are mostly promoting women in the name of diversity even if they are mediocre. Stay away from citi and join somewhere they have high bar for hiring and high standard .
Women and monirites, same is true for other banks. The white male is screwed and I feel kinda bad for my white male colleagues But every dog has its day
Can only speak to smaller fintechs not based in bay area: 1. Closer to finance culture than tech culture. If it's a newer/smaller company expect more of a "bro'" vibe. If it's a larger company expect more of a trad finance world vibe. 2. Getting things done at any cost 3. More hierarchical but pays lip service to listening up and down the chain. 4. Lol. Yes in some cases it can be comically non-diverse. Last time I worked for one of these companies I was hoping they would hire more women because everyone at the top (except for HR lead) was an older white dude and honestly it created a lot of unnecessary aggro energy. They needed some women to bring some balance to the vibe! 5. Like 2 years max unless you got in early and have a ton of equity. 6. Depends. They give out titles instead of comp increase sometimes, but either way the roles aren't really comparable to "M1" or w/e because you have to handle way more shit than a manager at a larger company. Think like even VPs might have to dive into code and fix things in emergencies where you would always have an IC do that at a big company. Despite being a "bro" myself I was kind of annoyed by the culture most of the time, that said it was a lot more fun/dynamic place to work than a larger established company. Probably looking to get back into that space at some point.
Thanks so much, then why do people work here? Seems like no upside
Not sure if my company counts as "fintech," but you'll get a bunch of varying responses here. I'm speaking only from experience at my current company. 1) Good WLB, flexible PTO. People are really easy to work with. 2) Product facing work. Tech debt and infra projects always take a back seat because we don't have a CTO pushing for these to be prioritized on the company level. 3) Bottom-up. Has its benefits, but see point 2 for a downside. 4) Yeah, pretty much. :/ 5) Same as other tech companies (~2 years). 6) N/A for my company, we don't use those terms here.
FinTech is the shitty intersection of "not a real bank" and "not a real tech company" Trust me lol