Excellent benefits but everything else is questionable - Anonymous employee Discover Employee Review

2.0
6 Jan 2019
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Excellent benefits (BCBS PPO, 401k match, education, child care subsidies, PTO), good work life balance, ability to work from home (although the usage of this depends on the department - some managers frown upon it)

Cons

Where to start... - cult like “happiness” - they heavily promote the culture of being valued and appreciated yet there is an undercurrent of issues that come up in their actions that unfortunately go against it (see below) - open office with unassigned seating means that you might be spending time finding an open desk in the morning for you to work. Some areas are very short on those. Also - the noise level is not conductive to actual work that requires concentration. And - how valued do you really feel when you basically have non existing floor space? - Roll out of lean/agile in non-IT areas. DMS is supposed to reduce waste yet it’s creating it. We spend 20%+ of our time now in meetings about our work and how we do it VS actually DOING the work - So.much.politics - Senior management keeps pushing for cost reductions and efficiencies yet are stuck in the old ways of doing things and really not open to different strategies than same old same old. - a culture of “yes people“ - you’re expected to say yes to everything and are labeled as “difficult” or “uncooperative/not a team player” when you say no to things because you don’t have the capacity or because you’d be doing the work of other departments. - redundant work in departments (see above), a lot of busy work that doesn’t add value Bottom line: DFS likes to present itself as the Disneyland of companies. Don’t be fooled by it.

Explore other reviews about Discover

5.0
12 May 2026
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Discover was an amazing company

Cons

Post merger, it’s not the same vibe. Most of us are miserable.

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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