Good company, but very little advancement - Project Manager Discover Employee Review

4.0
26 Jan 2016
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Company growth and stability is good. The people are great - there are always a few bad apples, but this is the most supportive environment I've ever worked in. Work/life balance has been pretty good in all roles I've been in, but better in some places over others. Benefits are good; PTO at the onset is nice. Pay is both high and low - low compared to other financial and regulated jobs, but high compared to other places. Assorted perks, like having an on-site nurse, are very nice. They are slowly moving into being a more progressive company, in the last couple of years opening a downtown office, encouraging work from home and flexible working environments, casual dress, etc.

Cons

No advancement. It is a running joke across Discover HQ that you have to leave the company and come back to get promoted. HR and hiring managers are very quick to promise a lot of things regarding career path or promotions that never materialize. If you are willing to wait 5-10 years before being promoted, you'll love it here. If you are young and hungry, it's a good stop before heading elsewhere (which is sad to say, because the company is really great). As with most of corporate America, get used to re-orgs every six months. If you have the same role and same manager after a year, you're a rarity.

Explore other reviews about Discover

5.0
28 Mar 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

One of the most significant advantages of interning at Discover is the opportunity to work with massive, high-stakes financial datasets within a highly collaborative and mentorship-driven culture. Because the company manages millions of consumer accounts, you gain direct experience in how data-driven decisions impact risk management, credit modeling, and fraud detection in real time. The environment is known for being supportive of early-career professionals, offering structured learning paths and exposure to modern cloud-native infrastructures like AWS. Furthermore, the company’s strong focus on work-life balance and a clear pipeline for converting interns to full-time roles makes it an excellent "foot in the door" for anyone looking to build a career in fintech.

Cons

On the other hand, the primary drawback often stems from the inherent bureaucracy and heavy regulation of the banking industry, which can lead to slower project lifecycles and "red tape." You may find that a significant portion of your time is spent on repetitive data cleaning and maintaining legacy reporting systems rather than building the cutting-edge predictive models you might expect. Additionally, because Discover is a massive organization, your scope of work can sometimes feel siloed, making it difficult to see the end-to-end impact of your analysis across different departments. Finally, the current landscape of the industry means that internal shifts or large-scale corporate restructuring can occasionally lead to uncertainty regarding team directions or long-term project stability.

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