My comments below are relevant to USAA IT only - I have worked here for 15 months;
1) Outdated and proprietary technology tools and frameworks which are built in-house and impose a steep learning curve on new employees.
2) A lot of technically incompetent people who lack sound architectural and design skills to analyze the problem
in a big-picture context which almost always leads to unreliable software and frequent outages in Production.
3) The ROI for most of the IT projects is horrible - they spend way too much money for what they get in return.
4) For key tools and enterprise software, they rely heavily on IBM which is no longer known for building great software products - rest of the world has moved on from IBM.
5) Very risk-averse and slow to adapt, risks should not be taken just for the sake of it,
but taking no-risks is actually much worse than taking calculated risks.
6) Lack of strong and visionary technical leadership at the top.
7) Some employees who behave like kids - complain about very petty things to managers.
8) False and baseless sense of pride - most of the employees have no idea how BETTER looks like,
so they think they are the best and with that mindset, you will never get better or learn from others.
9) Strong anti-California/Silicon Valley sentiment - every company can learn from Silicon Valley companies about being innovative,
building great work-cultures, and managing risks smartly.
10) Not open to new ideas, suggestions, and constructive criticism - criticism almost always results in a negative performance review.
11) Their base pay is low.
12) 401K benefits vest only after 2 years of employment.
It is very disheartening to see college-hires starting out their careers here.
Finally, if you have a choice, please consider the alternatives more seriously. This is a software engineering practice at it's worst.
We spend the most of our day at work and it helps to make sure that we find what we do enjoyable and rewarding.
