JPMorgan Chase

Good working hours, competitive salary, good time-off benefits.

I can only speak from a technology perspective, and there are tons of things that can be improved:

• Very poor tech managers who are not trained to lead people. The CEO and some upper management have great vision, but it does not trickle down, and middle managers are crap. Most middle managers in technology are foreign-born and thus bring a dictatorial management style. In all my years there, I never had a US-born manager. They never cared about my career, only about results.

• Too much bureaucracy for a technology operation. Lots of status reports, even when they talk about going Agile.

• Not enough diversity in the technology staff. 80% of the tech staff come from the same foreign country, including managers. Lots of consultants and people with H1B visas who all stick together in their own cliques. Good only if you are part of that group.

• No clear career progression once you are at VP level. Difficult to move within the company to another project unless you know the other manager.

• Lots of mediocre tech staff, average training in software. The company expects to attract talent from top schools like Stanford, etc., but top performers do not stick around because they get bored, because of limited salary increases, or because they do not get promoted.

Career path: Define a clear path up for technology professionals who do not want to become managers.

Diversity: Directors and upper management, if you are serious about diversity, then change the way HR hires and managers retain people. No one wants to work at a company in the US where you feel like an outsider because you are US-born.