Goldman Sachs

Teammates are intelligent and committed to actually solving problems, not just punching in and punching out against the clock. Everybody is intelligent and driven to contribute and achieve – a very positive vibe.

Consensus culture. Generous salary. The London office is particularly flexible about leaving the office at a reasonable hour and working from home to attend to personal issues as necessary.

The London team sometimes needs to assert its independence and stature from the New York team, which tends to be domineering. You may leave the office at a reasonable hour, but your work comes home with you. Intense firefighting mode can be very exhausting and create the illusion of work without progressing.

Actually, all of the above is pre-collapse. I left just as things were turning sour, so I have no idea how the culture has changed in recent years.

Cross-functional collaboration is essential to getting perspective on the overall firm. It's very tempting to keep IT in a silo, remote from its Ops user base, but this exposure is a mistake. One of the best decisions made is to have one team member sitting amidst Ops each day. You get a pulse of how things really operate, users feel reassured, and you bake in a culture of having a virtual office where a teammate can work remotely and yet contribute meaningfully.