Fidelity Investments

Fidelity is well known for their great benefits. Although their salaries tend to be way below what other companies pay, it's a great place to start, get your certifications, and then go somewhere else where they'll double your pay. This is what most engineers were doing at the time I was there. After I left, I doubled my salary at another firm.

I worked at Fidelity from 2018-2019 and found it to be one of the most toxic cultures I’ve ever experienced in my 20+ years as a professional.

I worked in ECC where, although being a highly technical BU, the Sr leadership (at the time) promoted several non-technical people into leadership positions. I worked under one of these, a woman (HJ) who had a knack for hiring and promoting underqualified people, thereby creating a situation where they needed to be “protected” and would be loyal to her. This included promoting an individual from QA to a PM role with zero experience, as well as someone from the event planning dept to a Dir level leading a UX team.

The situation was so wily that at one point, this PM (LV) held several meetings to explain to our highly experienced UX team “UX Strategy.” She’d done her research on Google. I wish I was joking.

Later, she would hold “UX Strategy” meetings that only included the one UX designer and a young woman whose role was designing PP decks for leadership (SJ). She insisted on defining herself as the UX Researcher, even though (you guessed it) she had no experience doing research and never actually conducted any research. But she was really good at gossiping, slandering, and keeping VP abreast of BU gossip. I wish I was joking.

These people were not only unqualified and unprofessional, they were MEAN.

The PM for this team created a corrosive and toxic environment; she battled constantly with the PO in front of the full 20+ team, deliberately excluded key players from meetings, showed open aggression in smaller meetings, bullied several individuals, and was just a hostile aggressive person in general.

There was another individual promoted by this VP who not only lacked in technical or leadership skills, but was one of the most badly behaved individuals of the entire team (MVH). She led a team of several people and had the emotional IQ of a 13 YO girl. She also bullied members of her own team, behaved in a hostile manner, openly threated team members, and acted appallingly. When new leadership came in and there was a reorg, she kept her position but lost her entire team. That should tell you all you need to know about Fidelity. The fact that all these people are still employed there is insane.

And make no mistake, the behavior of this group of women was endorsed by their own leadership (HJ). They knew they could get away with it and they did. Tactics included:

• Mobbing
• Bullying individuals and teams
• Open aggression in meetings
• Withholding vital information
• Excluding individuals from specific team meetings
• Openly threatening individuals
• Slandering those who refused to play their game
• Firing those who refused to fall in line or pushed back

Many associates complained to both HR and the Chairman’s line about this group of women, but the only sense we had that they were taking any actions was when HR executives showed up to an offsite event. But you guessed it, nothing happened. HR exists only to protect the firm. If there are no lawsuits possible, they don’t care.

This “leader” is now a VP in PI and continues her abusive, toxic behavior, as well as promoting only those who show their loyalty to her, as evidenced by the woman she just promoted to Director. In fact, all these women still hold positions at Fidelity. They may be scattered across the enterprise, but it’s just a matter of time until VP brings them all back onto her team and it all begins again.

Leadership should listen to all associates. Holding small meetings to actually listen might make a difference.