Fidelity Investments

Very good in terms of flexible work hours, ability to work remotely, and geographic diversity.

A big plus is the international exchange program where employees from Ireland or India come over to the U.S. and vice versa. Of course, this is usually only available to senior positions, but it's a great bonus nonetheless.

They also offer free financial courses, even for those of us who are not finance majors.

They place great emphasis on retirement savings, and their profit-sharing plan puts funds directly into your 401k, tax-free! This alone helped me reach my retirement goals in a very short span of time.

The red tape is a killer! Unless you have been in the organization for a while (4 years at least), it is extremely hard to get things accomplished without running around all over the place, being bumped from person to person.

Certain "standards" in place also merely serve to place a checkbox on a form rather than serve a real and vital purpose. Again, this adds to the red tape without necessarily improving quality or process.

Career growth is strictly by time worked rather than skill. There is no "fast-track" for star employees. Even for those that consistently outperform, they still get the same promotion timeline as the not-so-stellar employees.

Fidelity always touts itself on being the leader in the financial services industry in terms of technology spend. However, what is clearly apparent is the enormous pay gap between the IT versus finance employees.

The career and professional growth opportunities that the finance folks have completely overshadows the prospect of the techies. As a result, many talented IT employees end up leaving in a hurry to pursue better opportunities elsewhere.

Management needs to address this problem. Otherwise, Fidelity can no longer be called the leader in technological innovation in the financial services sector.