American Express

The company offers boundless growth, both vertically and horizontally. This is great for individuals, but results in constant internal turnover and change management (meh).

Managers and mentors hold employees accountable to their self-prescribed development plan, which puts the onus on employees to enhance the characteristics they deem necessary to advance in the workplace.

The atmosphere is also very positive. People seem happy at work and very willing to provide assistance on project decisions or data acquisition. In terms of employers in the Phoenix metro area that have dedicated Industrial Engineering departments, American Express provides the best internal structure for career advancement.

The major downside of working at American Express is in dealing with the current legacy systems. Given the nature of the business (highly sensitive financial data) and the maturity of the business, we are continuously confronted with technological constraints. Data is extremely difficult to compile, and often times requires going through hoops to be granted access to. This tends to greatly lengthen project timelines and leads to frustration.

Another downside is the workplace environment. We are all confined to archaic cubicles, which goes a long way towards putting everybody into individual silos. Our business thrives on open collaboration, but the data availability and general work environment hinder that.

Invest in technological capacity and work to open data availability to all those professionals that need it.