Deutsche Bank Reviews in London, UK Area

Pros

Business: Strong European bank, more business thanks to balance sheet use.
Culture: Very open culture. People willing to help all the time. Was shown around by different people in the bank from many different teams. From analyst to senior management always found some time to talk to you, take you out for a lunch and chat, answer questions.
Social: Events were organised to meet other interns and also business representatives. Well organised and fun. Information provided before hand to allow to prepare.
Extra: HR is very helpful and well organised. Flexibility with important issues, tries to accommodate different needs. Catering is wonderful compared to other places, as is location, in a large building in the City of London.

Cons

Possibly a smaller, younger investment bank. Less brand name in the investment banking industry, although it is one of the largest and well-known universal banks.

Pros

- It can vary but hours are usually fair
- Has still performed well despite the financial crisis
- Decent benefits
- There are some very capable people in the Org.
- Attempts to embrace new ideas

Cons

- Hugely bureaucratic and complex organization to navigate,
- Ineffective processes
- A unpractical IT organization with too many layers
- Far too many Program Managers not nearly enough people who do!
- Outsourcing gone mad!

Advice to Senior Management

Drill down into some of the detail so you can make more informed decisions, don't blindly go down the outsourcing route ... how about your IP. Quality is suffering.

If you want to save money look at the amount of time, employees are spending following impractical process. Surprise yourself!

Pros

Good environment where colleagues are held accountable. Access to career progression and support structures. Good central location of offices which helps.

Cons

Poor infrastructure functions who are not kept to the higest standards, long hours with pay reward not reflecting. Not that bad though.

Advice to Senior Management

Continue to lead with austerity and promote cultures that that are all inclusive to promote the the brand of DB.

Pros

They encourage a team approach to work and they have a very strong CSR program

Cons

Long hours for an Intern who was also studying for an MBA

Advice to Senior Management

Perhaps cut down the hours to enable the intern to put more focus on studying.

Pros

Benefits package
CSR
Name
Internal job mobility is promoted
Global presence, opportunities available to work in most key deutsche bank hubs

Cons

Poor senior management - Severe lack of direction, some are promoted not on merit but on who they know.

Worryingly, there are some senior managers, especially in technology who are protected by senior MD's. This "allows" them to behave in any manner they wish, resulting in a bullying culture and some very talented people leaving the bank.

Difficult Promotion process - Although in technology there is a more structured promotion process, the management in charge are not always the right people to make the right decisions. Promotions should be based on meritocracy and the persons ability to work at that level. I agree that a SME that struggles to work with others is a difficult candidate to promote and justifiaby needs to improve this aspect if they are to be promoted.
There are many examples of employees who get promoted based on length of service, surely something any tier 1 investment bank should not do if they are to remain competitive.

Advice to Senior Management

Listen to your employess.
Look after your talent before they leave.
Stop protecting senior\middle management that are obviously not fit for the roles they do

Pros

The pay package is good and out of chaos opportunities can arise.

Cons

A process for everything (usually several duplicate processes) but few effective processes.

Pros

good benefits, pension, arts membership,

Cons

limited opportunities for career advancement,

Pros

Excellent benefits, friendly workforce, opportunity to work with a variety of people on many different projects, largely due to their outsourcing strategy. Met some really likeable people here.

Cons

Very very very poor management. They're trying to reorganise the technology division but are just making it worse. Too much management, too many layers. In fact, it often seems that the place is full of managers. Everybody is trying to become AVP, or VP, or Director, or Managing Director, most of the time without merit. People are promoted for the wrong reasons - for length of service and friendships rather than deliverables - definitely NOT a meritocracy. People are more focussed on promotion and building their own mini-empire rather than delivering well.

They also outsource a lot, and accept work done at a sub-standard level. Most of the management do not understand technology and do not have a handle on quality of work and timelines. They waste a lot of money on this. Most of the technology staff are sub-standard external consultants. This leads to poor results.

People are also free to choose whatever technology they want to get the job done. There are very few standards. The people at the top of the technology division need to ask themselves what they are doing and why such basics standards are not in place.

They need qualified people brought in to change things. People with guts to get rid of the mis-firing management, and greater focus to bring in talented developers who will hold the knowledge long after a project has been delivered.

I cannot stress enough how frustrating it is to see layer after layer of middle management. I do not understand why all the MDs, Directors and VPs are needed, and moreso, what they actually do. Don't get me wrong, there are some very bright people here at all levels, but they are diluted by really poor employees.

They struggle to keep their best staff for many reasons, and tend to hang on to the people who are performing poorly. They should look into why this is if they really want to change technology at the bank.

Advice to Senior Management

Stop promoting your friends, stop all the horse trading that goes on when deciding promotions. Promote only on merit.

Have a flatter structure. Hire better managers. Don't be afraid to sack people who are not performing. Offer training to those you want to keep so that they can actually do the job at hand.

Reward those that do well, and focus on keeping them at the bank. The attrition figures for the high performers are attrocious for a leading bank.

Pros

- Some talented/smart among the bunch.
- Good benefits
- Good upside potiential if you are in the correct area and play by the rules

Cons

- A thick net of politics sorounding IT. Talented people can be held back; meritocracy is a relevant concept here.
- Too many teams doing similar stuff - very obvious lack of cooporation due, again, to politics.

Pros

serious about diversity, lots of different roles, good manager, great CSR and culture offereing, very good offerign in benefits, networks etc

Cons

lack of transparency, takes a long time to navigate, can be bureaucratic and "jobsworth" in some areas