ShareBuilder Reviews

Current Employee – been working at ShareBuilder full-time for less than a year

Pros – Management cares and the people that they hire are great for producing a a great work place environment. They will pay for your books so you can become a licensed broker (Study on your own time) The paid time off is really nice and attractive.

The team outings and competition is really fun and constructive. The management is always watching performance and the coach constructively. They do not do any "Brow beating" which makes helps. The company is also growing which is great for growth opportunities within the company.

Cons – Night shift can get boring in between calls.

Advice to Senior Management – NO advice right now.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at ShareBuilder full-time

Pros – Brilliant employees that are genuinely focused on best solutions for customer to save money and build wealth. ShareBuilder management values employee input.

Cons – After Capital One acquisition there are now more incentives for customers to spend and save. Being part of a much bigger company that doesn’t have the same philosophy as ShareBuilder tends to confuse customers.

Advice to Senior Management – Work with all locations and send a clear message to employees that they are valued

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at ShareBuilder full-time for more than 7 years

Pros – Great work culture and awesome coworkers.

Cons – They hold on to sandbaggers a little too long.

Advice to Senior Management – Make people earn their salaries, sometimes things are a little too relaxed.

– I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Current Employee – been working at ShareBuilder full-time for more than 3 years

Pros – Very capable co-workers
Many opportunities to gain experience in fields other than your own
The company cares about its workers and shows it through many at work events
Recently purchased by Capital One which should improve upward mobility
Great work/life balance

Cons – Hard to receive promotions within the department you work for
The pay is below average compared to similar positions at other companies
Due to ownership changes it can sometimes seem impossible to move forward on a project due to bureaucratic slow down

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend – I'm optimistic about the outlook for this company

Former Employee – worked at ShareBuilder

Pros – It's an OK place to get some UX experience. Was a no-name but thanks to ING pouring gagillions of dollars into advertising, it's suddenly everywhere, so on the resume, it's fairly recognizable.
Had a really well developed marketing research lab/environment for a small company.

Cons – Product Manager here does not translate to ownership. You will be taking implementation guidelines from marketing and finance and basically be a tool developing tools with the dev team that in itself gets little respect. Lies and deceipt all around -- hired in 2007 as a Product Manager, then for one reason or another demoted to Business Analyst to clean up dirty backlog work of the previous Business Analyst who was incompetent and left hundreds of bugs to clean up. No bug tracking tool, you build your own in the way you know how. Constant political battle with the Project Manager on the IT side, eventually that PM getting fired for incompetence. Promised to be promoted within 6 months and constantly praised for a job well done and even getting a bonus/raise and then used to clean the management's mess. When I proposed a mobile strategy and moving to online forms and SEO for this "online only" bank, it was all dismissed as a non-idea, and a year later, launched under the manager's name. Manager said that it took him 9 years to get promoted, and if someone thought they would be luckier, they should think again. This is not a high-tech start-up, but a dinosaur financial services company acting as if it is a technology company. Working there is demeaning, unless you are in marketing and get "perks" from your clients and partners. Same people have had the same position for 12 years -- that should tell you something. If mediocrity and blind execution without challenging is your style, this is the company for you.

Advice to Senior Management – Time for your product management leadership to retire and make way for intelligent young employees.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at ShareBuilder

Pros – In IT: The people are great to work with, including management. The environment is fun and work well done is well recognized. You can take charge of your professional growth.

Cons – IT tries to drive growth/change...other departments not always so quick to keep up.

Advice to Senior Management – Convert your top performers to fte and implement a work from home policy.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at ShareBuilder

Pros – Great management team, fun people.

Cons – More documentation is needed to support existing systems.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at ShareBuilder

Pros – * generous 401k match with immediate vesting
* reasonable -- but not excellent -- health insurance options
* certain middle managers are good (though hamstrung)

Cons – The INGD takeover two years ago began a long slow period of culture and policy shift, ultimately removing nearly all of what made ShareBuilder decent (and it had its problems even before). Worst is probably the way employees are now treated like children instead of responsible adults. Many good employees have been removed for specious reasons in a non-acknowledged 'housecleaning' effort. I am fortunate enough to have a manager who provides air cover from some of the more egregious political infighting, and does his best to ensure that his people are treated well, but others are not so lucky.

Advice to Senior Management – You might consider that the employees of a company whose entire business is based on a web site might actually need access to the web. Cutting off all ability to interact with the outside world rather hamstrings research and development.

No, I would not recommend this company to a friend

Current Employee – been working at ShareBuilder

Pros – great people, good culture, fun place to work, intelligent colleagues,

Cons – ING Direct changed the corporate culture slightly and it feels much more "corporate" than it used to. It is difficult to advance in the company due to its small size but not impossible

Advice to Senior Management – Communication is always tough but the top leaders at ShareBuilder definitely struggled with this and it led to the most unrest while at the company especially during the merger.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend

Former Employee – worked at ShareBuilder

Pros – ShareBuilder was a great entrepreneurial culture. There are plenty of opportunities for those that are willing to work hard, The company had an aggressive growth strategy because it was a Venture Capital backed portfolio company.

Cons – The company was purchased by ING in 2007. The culture at ShareBuilder was very relaxed and very west coast. When ING purchased the company, they brought a lot of big-company controls (revised dress code, website lock-downs, cutting of free monthly investment benefit for employees).

Advice to Senior Management – The talent was drawn to the company based on the culture. The culture helped developed normal employees into employees who achieved their full potential. Zapping the company of culture will result in a talent departure situation. The company would have to operate as it did before (not as an ING Direct Subsidiary) in order for employees to considering staying. Without that, employees will feel like they signed up for one company, but got a different one.

Yes, I would recommend this company to a friend