Could be great, it was lacking too much
Pros
You will, if YOU want learn much about ETFs and Indices. The tech is amazing, what they are achieving is brilliant - as a business model especially combining the ETF world with the index business (some of which is underlying) is brilliant and clearly something that the sell side loved and plenty of decent names within the banking world. You will be exposed to big name clients and learn the demands and requirements (albeit the hard way at times). There are some really nice staff, mainly at the lower levels, though one manager is helpful, though will be swamped with Development demands. The Dev team were great, they understood that the front line were getting hammered, and were great at supporting. The office was well located near Liverpool St Station.
Cons
The training was poor, practically non existent - that coined with a borderline suicidal hiring policy of grads with no finance knowledge is a recipe that was disastrous, and just put more pressure on those with half a clue - increasing already piled high workloads and SLAs. Procedures were non existent, training anyone new was difficult.. especially when they had no idea about the basics of identifiers for example. The atmosphere can be frosty, stick rather than carrot approach. The working hours are longer than standard, and factor in lack of lunch and overtime (unpaid and unthanked) and it can be quite draining… pro rata that to salary and you’ll realise you are not earning enough to make it worthy of all the stress. Priorities change too often, and the lack of management structure/guidance to coordinate any of the future is poor. No one listens to the lower level staff, though ideas/improvements seem to often be suggested by ‘lower level’ staff, mostly ignored at the time, but miraculously later implemented months down the line as if it was a brainwave by management. Disconnect between regions, this can lead to crazy handovers and regions staying late to cover. Far too many channels for client queries, and stretched a team far too much at times and therefore unable to offer a level of service that was expected, would not get sympathy or help… just told off. Really poor way of handling it, demotivated people that were busting a gut to try and make it work, who were dealing with irate clients with a lack of tools/knowledge.
