Good benefits, mediocre pay - Software Engineer Discover Employee Review

3.0
11 Jun 2021
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

The culture at Discover is pretty laid back and the benefits are really good. 25 days PTO starting, generous 5% 401k match, reasonable WFH options even before the pandemic.

Cons

The pay is well below average for engineers of all levels. Promotions have been frozen for over a year now despite all time high revenue and stock prices, and leadership has indicated that promotions will remain frozen at least through 2021. A lot of good talent is leaving because of this. The amount of red-tape required to get anything done is overwhelming. There is also a serious lack of documentation. Teams get re-organized so often that finding out who owns or even knows about a specific application or service will consume the majority of your time. The amount of time you'll actually get to spend building software is miniscule. Every couple of years there will be an exciting new initiative from leadership to totally improve the way we work, but despite the all of the inspiring speeches at town hall events, the plans don't come to fruition before they change their mind to chase the next big thing.

Explore other reviews about Discover

5.0
8 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

It was a great work-life balance company.

Cons

After the acquisition, everything changed; the company became toxic by Capital One

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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