Lousy dinosaur managers keep others from being promoted and clean their hands off of employees
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.
