rating for UBS AG
posted
on
May 23, 2007
The work is not creative. It's routine. Though big banks love to give the impression that they're "cutting-edge", what that actually means is that they're in a frozen time capsule where the usual C++ mutexes, multi-threading and deadlock questions form the most tough interview questions you will face. Cutting-edge means : we are investing in Grid technology.
There's a bit of Dilbert at work in the big bank IT departments : managers are often clueless folk who rely on the Alpha Programmer (one designated person) to form opinions of ALL the other coders. So your social skills are VERY important if you want to get noticed, rather than "pure" technical skills. If the Alpha Programmers don't like you, you will not get far, even if the fact is that you kick ass. The reason this happens is that delivery, "execution" is much more important than being invested in hi-tech.
They're OK investing in hi-tech as long as it still means your job can be shipped off to Bangalore, i.e. bozo-level object-oriented stuff : good, XML : good, Java : VERY good. Haskell : WHAT?!! NO!!! Let's say you would want to introduce Scala or Haskell in this environment, you would have to bring it in a bit surreptitiously, or sell it as a cool configuration file language. :-)
The good part is that if you can stay sane despite the humdrum, you can make a good deal of money off the stock options. Or by jumping from one bank to another every n years.
Or if you're the type who is not that invested/interested in being technologically competent, you can easily scale up the ranks by investing in drinks after work.
2 comments
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Re: big bank syndrome posted on May 28, 2007 09:42 AM
I know Coderific is meant for current and former employees, but I did have an annoying interview experience with UBS in London.
Currently I run a micro ISV and UBS has purchased my software on at least two different occassions. I saw an advert in a free London newspaper saying UBS are recruiting software developers and applied.
I attended their London offices on two different occassions. There I had to do a 45 minute written programming test and answer an hour long series of verbal technical questions. I know programming languages well. I scored 100% in the written test. For the verbal questions, I did similarly well.
Unfortunately right after all the technical questions, one of the interviewers flicked through my CV and verbally started to put me down over the fact I've had 5 different jobs. However my last job lasted just under 3 years and the job I had before that was a temporary one.
UBS had my CV before I started the interviews. At the time of my interviews there were problems on public transport and so attending the two interviews (plus travelling time) took up 14 hours of my time.
Despite doing well technically the whole experience was a waste of time, just because UBS did not properly read my CV before everything started. I know you have to allow for the fact that interviewing is not always successful, but in interviewing I think each side needs to take reasonable care to stop time being wasted unncessarily. UBS patently did not do this. -
Re: big bank syndrome posted by mindas on November 11, 2007 11:55 AM
Very very similar experiences here. Was looking for a job in Dec 2006 and went to a series of interviews with UBS. First it was test in writing (after which they tell they sift about 80% of applicants), then it was another one, and then another two. I was told I need to get as far as 6 interview levels, unfortunately couldn't kill the boss at level 4 :)Although I believe I did the technical part reasonably well (I asked if they see any problems with that), the reason for negative response was "lack of motivation". I believe the 4th level boss (who isn't even a coder) found something suspicious in my CV, dunno. Interesting though I was told the turnover is very low, average is about 7 years; hardly believable but who knows? Maybe one just gets used to the smell of money...
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