Pros: Stable company. Good benefits. Decent pay.

Cons: Micro-managers Adopting new tech is nearly impossible. Low morale.

Pros: They provide extra days off over and above vacation time (i.e., your birthday off, three extra days in the summer).

Cons: There is a very large emphasis and pressure on becoming a leader in your team. You will be constantly pushed into participating in leadership extracurricular activities, even if this does not suit your personality. All career paths in the company lead to a role which requires leadership responsibilities, even if you are a developer. The company seems to be trying to mold all employees into the same type of person: extraverted, outgoing, and leadership material. They are forcing employees to come into the office three days a week. They cannot provide a good justification for this decision and have actually stated that they have seen that employees work very effectively and more efficiently from home. From my personal observations, a large portion of the employees at Morgan Stanley at Work are unhappy with the orders to come into the office. Management has been struggling to get people to follow the orders, as they are not seeing enough people come in each week. This makes me, as an employee, feel like Morgan Stanley does not care about what the majority of its employees want. There is no concept of a Software Development Lead who runs the Agile ceremonies. Instead, there are Software Development Managers. All Software Developers have to run the Agile ceremonies themselves. Note: This is only a con if you are not a fan of public speaking. Compared to other companies I have worked for and what I have heard from other Software Developers about their companies, Morgan Stanley at Work requires a lot of presentations and demos from its employees.

Pros: A strong culture of volunteering and giving back is a core value for the firm. It's nice to work for a large company that makes significant donations, to the New York Children's Hospital for instance. Morgan Stanley takes care of its employees by promoting work-life balance, flexible sick days, and mental health days. The firm offers RRSP matching, which includes matching bonuses as well.

Cons: Working for a bank, employees are subject to trading restrictions, as Morgan Stanley is FINRA compliant. There are limitations on self-directed brokerage accounts, and outside business activities must be reported to the firm. There is no office Christmas party or many office-wide events. The firm places value on a uniform policy across the firm, which comes at the detriment of individual offices.