I landed a call from an in-house recruiter about doing data eng at JPMorgan Chase in Virginia. I'm reasonably happy where I am now and am not looking to leave but I've been looking to move into an engineering position in finance or banking eventually (personal interest). How's the culture there? Are managers/coworkers solid?
I'm not there anymore but when I was there was a room of free products we could just take from whenever we wanted
There are opportunities to learn.
There are also opportunities to get stack ranked at the bottom of the pile when your manager is forced to earn an offering to the performance management gods, opportunities to get put on projects you won’t enjoy, and opportunities to get laid off due to budget cuts.
If you’re happy where you are, make sure to put a ton of thought into where else you might be able to get the experience you’re looking for before considering a single company.
I'll give a perspective since I used to be at Cap1 and ran a data organization. If you're early in career and want to pick up some great habits and see a mature data organization this is a solid place to spend 2-3 years then move to a better role. You'll experience what a mature data org looks like, although, the gig isn't demanding. Spend your extra time paying attention, asking questions, and studying/hitting LC for the next job.
If you're mid-career but haven't worked somewhere with scale and throughput, this place will show you what "good" can check like and you'll be able to articulate it and drive change as a leader in other companies, not necessarily smaller.
If you're late career, this probably wont be a place for you unless you're leaving a tech company for VP+ role that has more scope than you presently have (L7 managing 40-80 to VP with 200-500). You still may require to take a pay cut if you're at a FAANG-like company so YMMV.
FWIW, I left Cap 1 a while ago and still haven't seen a data ecosystem that was as mature ~8-10 years later.
People have fairly mixed opinion for JPMorgan Chase! What I have noticed is , it largely depends on age group and expectation. To be clear, Most TDPs ( tech dev program college hires) are extremely unhappy about their job and it makes sense because they expect FAANG style work which is definitely not the case at Cap1. IMHO, cap one is pretty good for me, I have had really good learning experience here and freedom to gig on what I want, may be I have been lucky enough to make connections and good managers , but it is pretty chilled out , I guess, you need to learn the art to make your way here, but thats true with other tech companies too but it is little bit tricky here, given that there would be many projects that are BAU and not greenfield.
Overall, if you are hunting for relaxed environment with freedom to learn and explore, capone is good place but if you are looking for creative tech kinda projects, not a good place at all.
What location are you at? What TC? Are you SWE, DS, DE, or PM? Or something else? Generally interested
That's some solid insight. I'm hunting for more freedom in what I learn. I was informed I'd have some leeway in focus area where I'm at now but I've been getting railroaded into stuff outside my area that I'm not interested with the ability to change "soon" and it's been almost a year
Looking for interesting problems
Sounds like my old role. Bad sign, get out quick so u can learn and gain more valuable background.
That's a genuinely good point. I appreciate your thoughts, I'm mostly just exploring and trying to figure out what my following step will be, whenever the time comes.
I don't love the idea of stack ranking, I think engineers should be encouraged to cooperate rather than compete
The problem isn't so much the stack ranking (which most Fortune 500 companies actually do)
It's more a problem of the ridiculously subjective and biased metrics.
When you hear that a place is backwards-assed and relies heavily on nepotism, you may believe "oh, but then a genius like me is sure to excel since I can just put the work in"...
And then, you put the gig in... and then you get placed at the bottom because "fuck you, you're not from Virginia; the kid that went to Virginia Tech and fucks roughly on Pinterest all day gets the one promotion I have allocation for"
Just don't join the Data Analytics Team. The entire senior management organization is filled with inept Senior Directors/VPs. One inept lady just left and a different one dead beat just stepped in. They don't see the wealth of talent within their organization and use them the right way. The senior management has no idea what engineering is regarding. Complete failure
.....I’ve heard weak things. May be decent if u are interested in Data Eng. u could get background for a year or so then move to a real tech company for same role while leveling up.
Where are u presently?
Also TC or GTFO!