JPMorgan Chase

Benefits are nice.

• Four weeks vacation
• 401k matching
• A pension plan

Professional dress code required.

Teams are not co-located, so all meetings are virtual.

Year-over-year raises are non-existent.

Bonuses are based on how well you know people, not performance.

There's a terrible rule preventing renegotiation of salary and position when moving internally. The only way to increase your salary is to leave the company.

Employee morale is horrible because the work environment sucks.

Even though you are a developer, you will be expected to work support, so expect nights and weekend work.

If you work in Card, you will be required to use a virtual desktop which can barely run two programs at the same time. If you work in the investment bank, you will at least get a used laptop.

Open Source concepts are implemented horribly, so expect to use software a year behind what is current, if at all.

10% of your time will be spent actually coding. The rest will be consumed submitting requests and chasing approvals.

At company meetings, they stress how much money they are saving by reducing their technology budget, as if that is a positive thing. The truth is, corners are cut by forcing employees to use subpar technology (used laptops, virtual desktops, small monitors, etc.).

Value existing employees over new employees. Give them raises to remove the financial incentive to leave. Allow them to make vertical internal moves to reduce attrition. Get rid of the buddy-buddy review process so people aren't only giving bonuses to people they like. Get rid of all the technological barriers and spend money on technology that will empower developers to work at their full potential.