Goldman Sachs

I worked in the Technology division for 5 years.

1. I worked in the technology division of Goldman Sachs and I admire the smart people and technical courage of the company. The company truly believes in technology and is not afraid to build (and invest) in homegrown products, whereas other financial companies just live at the mercy of vendors and system integrators. You will be surprised at the scale and complexity of technical projects executed by Goldman on their own, without the involvement of any vendor or service integrator.

2. They take great pride and ownership in their work. The company outsources very little, and its products receive great attention from everyone. Managers pay great attention to detail. Goldman definitely seeks perfection in what they do.

1. Get used to executive worship culture. Goldman has MDs and Partners who are living gods in the corridors. This creates a culture of sycophancy and executive pleasing. I have seen people spend their days and nights not on working, but on pleasing.

2. Very New York Centered. New York is the absolute power center, and the managers there will share nothing with anyone else (even with other US cities). In other cities, you don't have the authority to do anything without triple New York approval.

All important projects are completely controlled out of NY, and if you are in other locations, you will find it hard to grow (or even breathe).

1. It's a company that encourages a culture where people work 20 hours a day. It's common to see colleagues work nonstop from 6:30 AM to Midnight.

2. Organizational Arrogance: Management has very firm views on what needs to be done, and you have little or no voice. It takes many years of service for anyone to have a voice in the company. Questioning or disagreement is almost always a career-limiting (or ending) move.

This arrogance leads to a culture where people spend their entire time building mega personas and hyper images of themselves. It's a culture where snobbery thrives.

1. Very rigid organizational rules: Goldman follows lots of processes and governance models around IT. These models are so rigid that even small tasks can take many months of back-and-forth wrangling between IT and governance teams. This is why executing even small projects takes 10 times the effort it would take in an easy-going organization.