Re:Banks Wage 'Hand-to-Hand Combat' for Tech Talent
by tsunamifury on Friday March 14, 2014 @05:45PM
(#7402157)
I've worked in development in the Big 4 in the US banking market.
Key Issues:
1) Product managers and Product Leads with MBAs (not all bad) and zero tech or design knowledge (bad)
2) Contracting out key roles to people who leave or disappear in less than a year, then just churning a new one in
3) Wildly uninteresting products built on ancient, dry legacy platforms
4) Feature update life cycles that can be measured in years, not months weeks or days.
5) Intense internal political battles between legacy middle and upper management who have nothing to offer the product.
6) Poor pay and even poorer respect
7) Not a creative environment.
I was just recruited for a mobile product manager role at the #1 or #2 bank in the US and I listened until I heard they intended it only to be a 6 month contract. I asked them how they planned to deal with a product after getting rid of the strategic head after 6 months -- to which of course there was no answer. Its this kind of nonsense that keeps them in back of IT recruiting.
Key Issues:
1) Product managers and Product Leads with MBAs (not all bad) and zero tech or design knowledge (bad)
2) Contracting out key roles to people who leave or disappear in less than a year, then just churning a new one in
3) Wildly uninteresting products built on ancient, dry legacy platforms
4) Feature update life cycles that can be measured in years, not months weeks or days.
5) Intense internal political battles between legacy middle and upper management who have nothing to offer the product.
6) Poor pay and even poorer respect
7) Not a creative environment.
I was just recruited for a mobile product manager role at the #1 or #2 bank in the US and I listened until I heard they intended it only to be a 6 month contract. I asked them how they planned to deal with a product after getting rid of the strategic head after 6 months -- to which of course there was no answer. Its this kind of nonsense that keeps them in back of IT recruiting.