Goldman Sachs

GS hires some very smart people. The competence in terms of technology is actually quite amazing.

There is a lot of emphasis on consensus and working together as a team. I had heard a number of people complain about the hours and the constant pressure etc., but I have not personally seen it. There are the occasional delivery pressures, but it is not constant.

Work-life balance is quite okay. The company offers a lot in terms of benefits for its employees. There is also ample room for growth for the right people.

Most of the cons are the usual ones in working for a large company. Technology processes are heavy in bureaucracy – to some extent this is understandable, but this impacts productivity. The number of meetings that one has to attend sometimes tends to take focus away from the job. It is very difficult to get something done unless you are in the top echelons of management, even though there is a lot of emphasis on people being driven and motivated.

Developers are required to do development, QA, and production support. This does not make for very productive developers.

Reduce some of the technology bureaucracy overhead. Hire people to do QA and production support, and pay attention to the quality of software we put out to users.