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“Growing” Environment that Constantly Strives to Improve

Software Engineer
Former Employee
Worked at BlackRock for less than 1 year
September 15, 2021
4.0
RecommendsPositive OutlookApproves of CEO
Pros
  • Company's product is high impact (manages more money than any other single software, possibly).
  • Company's eagerness to fulfill "fiduciary duty" really rubs into you.
  • Company constantly makes the effort to make itself a modern "fintech" company in culture and tech stack, as opposed to its origin as an in-house software branch for a non-tech finance firm.
  • Somewhat a continuation of the last point — company is pretty open in terms of adopting new tech stacks.
Cons

Tech debt runs rampant without a firm incentive/structure to decrease it (but this can be said for many companies).

Culture clash between “old school” business/finance-centric minds and “new school” fintech minds results in volatile engineering decisions at times.

No central tech stack vision (every team to their own tech stack and best practices) is an unfortunate casualty of effort to adopt all the latest and greatest tech.

Advice to Management

All the cons can be summarized as a result of the majority of the leadership being in the “old school” business/finance minds, while middle and lower levels are more “new school” fintech minds. Initiatives brought in by middle/lower levels do not last since leadership does not get it, and initiatives brought in by leadership just don’t scale well to the tech culture it tries to adapt to.

Additional Ratings

Work/Life Balance
3.0
Culture and Values
4.0
Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion
4.0
Career Opportunities
4.0
Compensation and Benefits
4.0
Senior Management
3.0

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