Wells Fargo

The Covid-19 pandemic response in India was very good. Wells Fargo really shined here. They had very good policies. I know of several instances where people at Wells Fargo went above and beyond to help impacted employees or their families.

PTO was better, but even with recent changes, it's still very good.

Some groups are really working on interesting problems and have very different experiences, but mine was not good.

Old and outdated technology in most groups.

Very heavy on process to the extent that it is stifling.

The deployment process is long, time-consuming, and painful to say the least (Excel with 200 steps?).

A configuration change due to a typo from the Ops team will need multiple approvals and the entire dev team to be available to support the install.

Change is the only constant – cliché but very apt for org changes that seem to happen every 6-12 months. New "leaders" come in, change the direction of the entire group, and then another change. The cycle continues.

"Automation is going to be the focus" – then promptly let the QA org be let go. Followed by training for devs to do automation and then change again to hire contractors to do testing, all within 6-8 months.

The vast majority of Engineering managers are incompetent on the technology front. It does not change drastically as you move up the chain.

If you have some technical knowledge and are an EM elsewhere, better to skip. Else, it will evaporate out of your brain as each passing day is spent filling Excel sheets for HR, your manager, your skip manager, and US teams.

The service company approach has been ingrained too deep. They have been trying to get out of it for many years with little/sporadic success.

You will fit in fine here...

• If you like spending time on nonsensical, mundane, and repetitive work like filling in myriad Excel sheets.
• If you like spending about 50-70% of your weekends fully occupied with work (hiring drives, updating Excel sheets, meaningless meetings).
• If you are not good at technology and can't hold a conversation about anything technical, however, you are good at committing unrealistic dates, micromanaging everything, claiming to follow agile, but still have to deal with BRD, FSD.
• If you are good at taking directions without questioning anything or applying your thought.
• If you don't have a problem with being yelled at for not being available on your PTO, but you cannot reach any US folks on their PTO.
• If you like attending meetings that have no agenda and no outcomes/action items.
• If you like complex and irrational HR policies so you can screw people.

Goals are set 3-4 months after the performance cycle has started. Ratings are given 2-3 months before the cycle ends. Payout happens 3 months after the previous cycle ends!

Except for a few Line of Business groups, the majority of the work being done in India is very low on the value chain. Think of Wells Fargo India as their in-house outsourcing vendor and be ready to be treated that way.

US teams are given dibs on important/interesting projects, and India teams are kept in the dark until the project kicks off or they need resources to complete (which is often the case as they mess up quite often).

Don't pretend to be a technology company, as you claim to be already. You are not operating as a product company.

There will be a need for drastic changes in Sr. Manager / Tech Exec level & potentially above to drive to this goal.

How can Engineering Managers / Sr. Engineering Managers be so clueless of technology if Wells Fargo wants to be a technology company?

Leverage the talent pool in India better than just giving low-value work.