Credit Suisse Reviews in Research Triangle Park, NC

Pros

Excellent work/life balance.
Weekend/evening work was extremely rare.

Cons

Things were great until they sent all the development work off shore.
When will companies realize that doesn't work?!?

Advice to Senior Management

Stop off shoring software development. It is going to do more harm than good.

Pros

Good work life balance
They treat contractors well, just like full time employee. This is the best part.
Flexible working hours, but working from home is generally restricted. You need to provide a good reason to work from home.
No micromanagement, You are given enough freedom to take day to day decisions.
Great cafeteria !

Cons

Recent layoffs creating confusion
Plan to move some employees to NY office is not clearly communicated. This creates lot of uncertainty among the employees as they could not plan anything long term like buying property etc.
Management dont update employees about the new developments. They all sit in NY office and there is communication gap.
Each managers have their preferred employees in their group and you can survive only if you are in a group.
Benefits and bonus are not great .

Advice to Senior Management

Communicate more often with the employees.

Pros

Exposure to different financial products.
Training are provided for employees to learn financial and other areas.
Majority of the co-workers are nice to work with.
Vacation and days off are generous.
Bonus is ok.

Cons

Very low salary even for senior developers as compared to competitors or market. They will give you either average or below average for what you are worth, which is stupid.

Chances of career advancements are hard to come by. You have to wait 1 to 3 years before you might get promoted even if you do hell of a job.

Recently seeing too much shakeup in the management and structure and people are leaving as they are not getting promoted despite doing great work.

Salary increment are rare and might take 3 years after you join.

Remote teams can be a pain in the rear to work with especially folks in London and Zurich think they are gods and have freaking huge attitude problems. Team in Singapore take things very little and work on their pace and schedule.

Too much administrative stuff like reviews by zillion people for you, twice a year to save your behind and keep your job.

No work life balance, long hours and no structure at all in project and products management.

Credit Suisse departments mostly use band aid solution for their IT products, fix and patch........

IT technologies are decade old as compared to competitors e.g. DB and programming technologies and focus is more on bulky and thick client GUI using C#.

You might be working 3-4 projects or tasks at a time per day.

Advice to Senior Management

Please stop playing around with organization structure, it creates a sense of instability among employees.

Do salary increments for those who deserve.

Provide good work life balance.

Stop hiring like crazy if you get a one good quarter and then firing people like it's slaughter house which recently happened.

Stop using band aid solutions for IT products and please come up with long term IT solution.
Promote deserving people often.

Retire old IT products soon rather than waiting for ever.

Treat people like human beings not disposable objects, they have lives, families too.

Please tell London and Zurich folks all of them to fix their attitude, all of them have attitude problems.

Pros

CS has a great brand name, decent benefits and cordial employees in RTP. The training that new hires receive provides a great general capital markets foundation, as well as area specific knowledge. There is a good team spirit amongst peers also.

Cons

Low pay, extensive hours, not a rewarding feeling at the end of the workday. Advancement within the firm dismal. You must be with the firm for years before you are eligible for a title upgrade, and when promoted your salary might cover inflation rates if you are lucky (2-3%). Upper management is solid, however most of the middle managers (and there are a lot) were lacking in leadership skills and were often inept. Mobility within the firm is encouraged, but often through lateral moves that hinder your chances for moving up.

Advice to Senior Management

Merit based promotions, higher pay, less CYA mentality

Pros

CS had a very nice facility and cutting edge hardware. Before the pay cuts the pay was great! I met some of the best and brightest people while employed at CS. Except for my department, most other groups had mostly positive things to say about their work experience.

Cons

Pay cuts, layoffs, outdated software, very little initial training, and any ability to change. I would say the worst part were the managers and the review process. The grading is based on how you are liked and not the work you actually perform (the word perception was used often). I know that may sound bitter but there were moving benchmarks to be measured against. All employees faced the same issues in both good and bad times. Therefore, it was an unfair situation for employees to be judged differently when they produced the exact same results. Also, the managers did not keep any metric of how the employees were performing on a daily basis throughout the year. For example of the review process and bias: 2 employees both have 10 unresolved problems. Employee A (who started with 100) is told that we are experiencing a high volume of problems so you did your best great job. Employee B (who started with 500) is told you have not resolved these problems therefore you are not within working parameters. This happened the entire time I worked there and the bias of the managers was brought to HR by multiple individuals on my team with little result.

Advice to Senior Management

Start focusing on work performed instead of perception. Never say the term "it is what it is" when speaking with employees.

Pros

it realy depends on the gorup you work for. Generally they keep you busy.

Cons

depending on your group - it can be a lot of work

Pros

Compensation is comparable or better than other companies
Bonus structure is higher than most companies in the area
Flexibility in working from home when needed

Cons

Setting up the RTP site to save money from the NY site is a good idea, but poorly executed. NY is reluctant to give away any power or is unwilling to collaborate. It is in most cases that it is the NY way or the high way.

Advice to Senior Management

Don't lose all the talent you just hired in RTP due to the reluctance in the NY office to change. Allow change for the better and try to foster more collaboration between the offices.

Pros

- Fairly relaxed atmosphere.
- Colleagues are mostly courteous and competent.
- Good benefits.
- Fair amount of vacation time.
- Good opportunity for advancement based on performance.

Cons

- There's some lack of willingness to help and responsiveness from other worksites.
- Very top-down approach.
- Sometimes too bureaucratic.

Advice to Senior Management

- Gather more feedback from the line users for suggested improvements.
- Act on valuable feedback from line users more often.

Pros

CS is a large international financial services company . It provides great opportunity for internal mobility to various locations around the world. An employee has the chance to be exposed to a wide variety of financial products. The company has excellent benefits, and as an organization headquartered in Switzerland, the firm takes an open minded approach to the way in which it treats its employees. Diverse company with a lot of good people.

Cons

Investment banks typically require long hours. While the neighborhhod bank up the street is open from 9-5, employees at investment banks average at least 10 or more hours per day. Although the company tries to support "work life balance", the industry demands a high level of dedication. Front office jobs (sales, trading, research) are most highly sought after (and most lucrative) and will require one to locate to a major financial center and have strong academic/ professional qualifications. Whether you are in the front office or a support role, you had better be able to handle stress.

Advice to Senior Management

Try to integrate the business lines better

Pros

Opportunities to travel/collaborate with colleagues in international branches, good amount of training, support of work/life balance, intelligent/hard-working colleagues

Cons

Senior leadership somewhat inexperienced, lacking outside understanding (their career advancement typically only within CS), poor downward communication

Advice to Senior Management

Understand the nuances of the local environments (branch locations), modify operations and corporate culture to match