not the firm it once was - Vice President Goldman Sachs Employee Review

l left GS after working for 10+ years in their tech division. Here are a few reasons why : Standards are slipping. In the past 5 years, many jobs such as DBAs and SAs have been off-shored to India to save money. Turnover in these locations is high and the quality of the staff is often lacking. lt's rare to find anyone in these roles who is skilled and takes a genuine interest in what they're doing. The amount of regulation and red tape has reached absurd levels. A simple task such as getting a server rebooted becomes a bureaucratic nightmare, involving multiple levels of manager approval followed by repeated emails, phone calls and hours of waiting. Don't even think about downloading a cool piece of productivity software onto your PC. You'll first need to check whether the app has been approved for use at GS, then get your manager to sign off, and finally open a ticket to have it installed remotely. If your app isn't on the approved list, forget it. By the way, India is never, ever referred to as a "low cost" location at GS - it's "high value", to use the correct GS-speak, To survive in the corporate hierarchy, you'll also need to learn how to "reach out" to somebody (= talk to them), to "revert" to an email (= reply), and how to "leverage" virtually any object (= use it), I know GS doesn't have a monopoly on this sort of double-speak, but I always find it faintly worrying to see how otherwise intelligent people parrot these tired phrases without a hint of irony or self awareness. Perhaps the most-used buzzword in recent years is "industrialization" - as in replacing human jobs with software, Management claim that industrialization will free people from routine or boring jobs, allowing them to spend time in more creative activities (there's never been an attempt to automate any MD- or partner-level jobs, although those are probably the most amenable - wonder why ??) It's difficult to criticize GS for wanting to cut costs, but it's dispiriting to think that your job in IT is essentially to put other people out of a job. Earlier in my career, GS was about using harnessing human intelligence to solve complicated business problems (and being paid well, because we were doing something that few others firms could). Increasingly we seem to be engaged in a race to the bottom, chasing ever-shrinking margins with as few overheads as possible, The relentless drive for efficiency makes for a pretty unappealing work environment - desks have been "densified" (another lovely GS-ism), office plants have been removed, and even the waste baskets have vanished. Don't expect to be be particularly well paid. I guarantee that you will quickly become fed up of reading about the "average" GS bonus payout in the media, and then having to explain to friends and family that you're only paid a fraction of that amount. I used to be proud of the fact that I worked as GS, now I try to avoid mentioning the name, The annual 360 reviews can also be pretty dispiriting. Over the years I've had reviews across the scale. Doing well seems largely to be a question of being in the right role and knowing the right people. Don't fall for the rhetoric about meritocracy - working hard and doing a good job is no guarantee of success. Personally i'd far rather the whole system were junked - I've had to deliver a few bad reviews in my time, and it's unpleasant and often utterly demotivating for the recipient. Oh, and prepare for endless cheerleading about the benefits of diversity and multiculturalism. The training is mandatory, so no sense complaining. But the sad reality is that "diversity in the workplace" often translates into hiring candidates who simply wouldn't have made it through the door 10 years ago. I loved my early years at GS, but I would not be tempted to re-join the firm today.