Fidelity Investments

The 401k in the USA is pretty good. You should get a return above 6%, or thereabouts. There's no reason you won't have over $100k in your 401k account after 5 years. This is the only pro to working at this company.

If you're looking for a technology position, I would go to a technology company.

Fidelity is a financial services company first, and as a result, they have some questionable practices. They have their own version of agile which just doesn't work. Be prepared for hour-long stand-ups in the morning, project managers who are not technical and fail to keep track of meeting minutes.

From a salary perspective, Fidelity is way behind technology companies. I left a senior position at Fidelity and joined a junior position at a technology company. My salary went from $74,800 to $120,000.

Once you get to senior level at Fidelity, the path to principal, manager, director, and above is almost non-existent these days. Your promotion path is not based on job performance; it is based on putting the time in with the group you're with. This much was admitted to me in my review meetings. If you join as a senior or get promoted to senior and want to be promoted to principal, be prepared to put in more than 5 years before even being considered for it. Chances are the company will use a downturn in the economy as a reason for not giving you the promotion you deserve.

If you're near retirement, you'll be fired so the company can save money by not giving you a full retirement package. I know a lot of people this happened to in 2008, and again recently.

The company keeps changing direction. When I joined in 2007, teams were organized by function – developers, testers, etc. Recently, they reorganized by product. You can be sure in another 6-8 years they'll go back to being organized by function after an independent consultant comes in and makes the case for it.

Every 8 years, the company sheds around 10-25% of its staff – most of them are the people it pays the most.

Give employees the pay they deserve. The company saves millions every year on their land by farming and saving a bunch in taxes. You'd think they would give some of this back to their employees.