JPMorgan Chase

Um... they used some cool technologies, I guess.

I would rather work at McDonald's than come back here. Every minute of every day I was worried I would be fired. I saw countless people quit or get fired. Early on, people were fired left and right, but when people quit like crazy, they found they wouldn't have anyone left to manage at this rate.

The organization I joined was an automation testing organization, testing their various apps and website. Despite over a month of background checks, and that they knew I was coming, I (a Software Engineer!!) never got a laptop ordered. Several weeks in, I finally got one when a coworker was fired. I waited 3-4 weeks for my badge to let me in; until then, I would beg several people via text to let me in. I didn't even have a consistent place to sit for several weeks, again until the forementioned employee was fired.

I was hired as a contract employee, and long before I had received my laptop or had any of the necessary software installed, management was already demanding to know why I hadn't completed all the tasks assigned to me.

There is nonexistent planning. Requirements gathering, estimating, etc., are nonexistent. They are always asking you to complete impossible tasks in a matter of a week or even a few hours, tasks that should be given months or even years to complete. If you don't manage the impossible over and over again, they ask you to work weekends pro bono, making implied threats to your employment status. It is always YOUR fault and not theirs that the impossible wasn't done. There is nonexistent coordination between the project managers, scrum masters, managers, etc. They all operate independently. The people in charge of the madness only interact with you in the form of threats, yelling, and making demands.

They run things by fear, browbeating, yelling, and intimidation. As people were dropping like flies, they finally started to get an inkling that maybe the way they run things needs a tweak, but things were still an unmitigated disaster.

It's a huge company and I don't pretend to know whether the rest of the company is run like this, but the organization I worked in was worse than can possibly be imagined.

That said, my immediate manager, Sergey Tuchinsky, was a swell guy and several of my coworkers were great people. Everyone above him were some of the worst people I've ever encountered.

Burn the rotten structure to the ground and start over.