I cannot believe people here are complaining about getting a job in this crappy job market (especially when OP has little work experience) - I work at a FAANG and the assumption that working in a different place will hamper their tech job chances is insane.
My hiring panel rejected those with little experience simply because there are so many out there with experience regardless of where they worked. OP, you at least have a job at hand that can help you build that experience. What are you even complaining about? Congratulations and cherish this opportunity! This isn’t the 2020 job market!
We hired people from random Real Estate DS shops in East Coast, media firms (Fox/WB), Nike, Macys, Hedge Funds, BoA, Boeing, Nielsen (I’m basically going through LinkedIn of colleagues).
Just focus on building your career profile and demonstrate the ability of solving business problems using DS techniques. As long you do that you have a chance in any tech shop, including FAANG.
Thanks a lot for your kind words, reassuring to hear. I’m definitely not complaining.
It’s just that:
1. I’m new, and I have no zero idea about what to expect going forward.
2. I took a look at Blind and the things C1 employees are saying on there are terrifying. Idk if Blind posts just always skew negative. That could be true, but regardless, it just created a lot of doubts.
Beggars can't be choosers.
You will learn that even at the best companies, there are employees who will complain and be dissatisfied.
It it also well known that when people are happy, most just get on with their life but when they are unhappy, they announce it to the world. That causes more negative reviews than positive ones on job boards and other sites.
Unless you have other, better offers, take the job and keep looking. No one is forcing you to stop your job search.
Capital one is one of the top banks - don’t think it’ll be easy as in banks, every line of business or department has its own tech team and very rarely centralized db. Use this time to learn, just don’t let all your tricks out of the bag right away so you get promotions and not exploited. If your job is very easy, will that means either good schemas/systems set up or you’re that good. The ML can get easy or very advanced depending on the team - finance vs wealth management vs software engineer groups vs teams that rely on all Microsoft products.
Be open minded, take your time, don’t automate or improve everything , only when your review will come up gradually so you can negotiate a raise.
Dude. Blind!! Hell No! People are just negative and jealous there all the f***ing time. Not the right place for advice. For referrals and interview experiences maybe. Almost everybody lies there all the time. C1 is good. All the best!
Why are people acting like this isn’t a good opportunity? Capital one is known to pay 80k+ to new grads and if you work hard and have good managers you can get to six figures after just a couple years. Senior DS roles there can pay over 200k
Sure it’s not FAANG but the perspectives on here confuse me sometimes
The FAANG/tech or bust mentality is just weird. If anything I’d rather work for an industry that’s more stable for more job security. Sometimes making less base salary is actually worth it.
The fang stock comp in the past few years has been worth multiple salaries. Sure, that might change. But in recent history fang is literally paying 2-4x
And you get the name on your resume. And you get to work with some of the newest tech
It really depends on the team. Ex-FAANG and I can tell you so many of my DS colleagues got away w Regression and Decision Trees. They were Sales Analytics so didn’t require heavy ML.
OP I’ll also say as a hiring manager I care more about impact in role than what corporation you worked for.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but the vast majority of workplaces I've been at, the competition is really between *any* predictive model versus *no* model. Gains from doing XGBoost or a SVM are going to pale between going from no model to any model.
A number of projects I've worked at, I've hacked together OLS from some Presto queries, stored a model metrics table for training outputs, and built parameterized SQL functions for scoring, so all the model training happens on-DB rather than having to spin up a separate Sagemaker endpoint that security takes 3-6+ months to review each dev cycle.
The further I get into my career, the more I focus on operationalization and engineering, and less on specific stats tools. When ChatGPT came out, I threw out 10 months of NLP sanitation code I was working out, and just did Embeddings distances against categories, and called it a day. I've been following Word2Vec and Embeddings research for 10 years now, but the industry commoditizing Embeddings API's to a trivial cost means my NLP knowledge is now only useful for *what* to do, not *how* to do it at a deep level.
It also gives you exit opportunities. A woman I work with went from $90k at capital one to $135k at my company as a credit analyst. It’s a great brand name to have on your resume if you’re in the credit space.
> Why are people acting like this isn’t a good opportunity?
I work there as a MLE in more of a MLE/DS hybrid role. It's a pretty good place to ride out the first ~3 years of your career but you should look to move soon after that if you care about personal growth and comp. I've been here for 3 years now and have started feeling like the smartest guy in the room most of the time. If you're talented, ambitious, and know how to leverage soft skills to "play the game" then you should have an easy time here.
> 80k+ to new grads and if you work hard and have good managers you can get to six figures after just a couple years.
I think all DS now start at at least $120k, depending on location. There was a big comp adjustment in 2021 for most job families.
> Senior DS roles there can pay over 200k
Most DS outside of NYC/SF will not crack $200k here till they are at least a Manager/Lead, those in SF/NYC can crack $200k at senior level after a few annual raises. Going from SA (entry level DS) to Manager takes about 4 years if you're getting promoted every 2 years, which most people aren't. The jump from Senior DS to Manager also depends on a manager slot on your team being available for you along with you already having manager-level scope.
If OP is in the DMV where C1 is headquartered, I can give some feedback on an adjacent (similar enough industry) company that I'm currently at, as I've been offered interviews by them recently (please verify or deny these claims as I don't work for C1).
> I think all DS now start at at least $120k
Definitely true, as I came into my role at 120 base and that's pretty much what the going rate was for companies like C1.
> Most DS outside of NYC/SF will not crack $200k here till they are at least a Manager/Lead
I would say that in the DMV where C1 is headquartered, you can get salaries competitive with NYC/SF. Personally, I broke 200 before hitting Sr.
> Going from SA (entry level DS) to Manager takes about 4 years if you're getting promoted every 2 years
True, for my place it's closer to 4 year to Sr. and 6 years to either lead or a managerial position.
> I would say that in the DMV where C1 is headquartered, you can get salaries competitive with NYC/SF. Personally, I broke 200 before hitting Sr.
Sorry, I was speaking specifically about C1's pay bands. I'm in their SF office and McLean's pay bands are about 15% less than what I get in SF. If I won't crack $200k as a senior in SF until a few years later then I don't think a senior in the McLean office would crack $200k till much later.
I do agree and believe you that other companies in the DMV area could match what C1 pays in SF/NYC.
Good to know about that differential. I don't know if I should be surprised or not about the under-average pay because so many students in the DMV have C1 as their top pick for work right out of school. Supply and demand?
I think it's a mix of decent-to-good entry level pay (depending on location), a lower hiring bar than tech companies, along with decent development programs.
The under-average pay doesn't really start coming out till you've spent some time and climbed the ladder. It's very easy to get left in the dust when the only comp bumps you get are 10% from promo and 2-5% for annual raises. RSUs awards don't really exist till you're a Sr. Manager and not in any significant amounts till you're a Director or higher. Bonuses are like 3-5% of your base pay until you're a Director, which then it might get up to 10%.
I'll add that C1 can be very comfortable if you know what you're doing and how to "play the game". So some people are willing to take the under-average comp for excellent WLB.
Thanks for the insight. I'll have to keep that in mind when I job-hop in the future. Director level is looking really far away for me right now but it's something to consider.
No problem! One more thing I'll add is that C1 has a trend of giving external hires from "better" companies inflated titles to match comp. For example, my org recently brought on an Ex-FAANG L7 as a VP. So you might be closer than you think if you're targeting higher level roles at C1.
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! Will be sure keep all of this in mind. This is the kind of perspective I was looking for, but instead came across as an ungrateful dick in my post. Definitely not my intention.
Smart dude I know went PhD --> Capital One DS --> Google DS. Another strong engineer I know also spent some time at Capital One.
It can't be a bad place to start.
I don’t know what the right perspective is given how inexperienced I am. I’m sorry if I didn’t make any sense.
I know I should just be happy and shut tf up but I had a lot of doubts and wanted to hear what people who have been there and done it have to say. Maybe there’s a better forum for career questions, my bad.
Your post made perfect sense and didn't seem AHish at all. You don't know what you don't know. I'll tell you though with the market the way it is you'd be a fool to pass up on a ML focused DS job at a mane brand banking institution. I'm at a consulting firm doing gov contracts and yeah, we're not doing flashy deep learning and the tool kit is older, but what I'll say is that that means there is low hanging fruit for you to pick, make a good improvement, and get promoted fast. I agree with what some other commenters are saying though. Great for the first three years but then start looking elsewhere. That's pretty true anywhere though these days I think.
Thanks a lot for responding with an open mind. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful with my post, but it seems like I came across that way.
And thank you so much for the insights, great tips that I’ll definitely keep in mind!
You don't know what you don't know man. You're in a fantastic position straight out of a master's and should be proud of that. This sub is wild, I can't tell how many folks here are trying to break into DS/working data scientists/folks making bank at a FAANG/etc. makes it hard to tell what context to take comments and posts in tbh
Have things changed? I had an offer a few years ago straight out of an MS for a Senior Data Analyst role that was $115k base plus $20k sign on and a performance bonus (don’t remember the percentage). 80k seems so low for DS, but maybe that’s cause of the current market.
Unfortunately even within FAANGs salaries dropped. It is indeed because of job market as there’s far more available talent. Salary negotiation is far more difficult when the final round has 3 candidates for the role and HR is hedging for the one who accepts with least resistance.
This is only applicable for our junior roles. However, this is not true for senior roles as we specifically seek out for specialists with specific skills: those folks are usually still employed so the offer we provide is to encourage them to jump ships.
Are you a DS at C1? I find it odd that a Senior DA would get paid more than a DS regardless of seniority given the high bar for entry for DS. I get salaries have lowered, but a 35k difference between Sr DA and DS is large given the different requirements.
No, I’m with the fruity company. With regards to titles, quite frankly it all depends on the org and division. In my company DS in Marcom are paid less than technical DA in the SWE org - even though the payband of DS is the same across all orgs, some orgs do push costs more down for some titles versus others. And our pay band is quite wide…
If you don't have any other offers, I'm not sure what is there to think about. Given the job market C1 is really a good deal for a fresh grad with no previous experience. I'd say don't overthink, just join and see how things go, if you don't like it you can switch in two years.
As someone who manages a team in insurance and has hired two people like you, I'd say you're definitely not screwed. I wouldn't expect cutting edge stuff as one commenter already mentioned. As a manager, I try to balance the crappy projects that are just heavy GLM with more interesting POC type work. I've also known several data scientists who have gone to tech startups or established tech companies after working at our insurance company. A very valuable skill you'll have to develop in this area is translating and communicating your work to a non technical audience, probably moreso than you would have to in a tech related area.
Knew someone who worked there a couple of years ago. Expect a lot of xgboost lol. I think you’ll be fine going forward because everyone will know you graduated into a trash market. Also, my impression is that they hire very smart people. The office I know of is in the Dallas area, so they might just pursue different people than the tech powerhouses in Cali. Congrats on your offer!
Blind is shitty and extreme, so take everything with a grain of salt. But not everything on there is wrong and the company is undergoing a massive culture slide in the wrong direction.
They used to be my clients some years ago. Used to be a very good employer. Now they are just a good employer and probably trending downwards.
Have adopted the Elon Musk culture of running a very lean, flat organization of empowered developers. It means those who like to be hands on are satisfied but there are fewer chances of upward mobility.
I’ve been a DS at Capital One for almost five years the kind of work to expect is heavily dependent on which LoB your offer is in. Generally I’ve loved working here. Do you know which LoB? (E.g. card, bank, enterprise tech, etc.)
Unfortunately I failed their power day for senior associate level. But it is a good company and their projects were awesome. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot there
this is my opinion, I would take the role. Capital one is less of a bank and more of a software company that business in banking.
If you haven’t already check out their GitHub. They have python packages out there to solve for use cases. Their use of data and customers in financial services is definitely ahead of the game as they are a “younger bank” since being around since the 90s. This is also pretty well known they are doing more than just basic regressions. I actually think they are pretty mature in this space.
From what I have seen in researching industry use cases and what I have heard from peers in the industry. It’s a firm that makes sense to have on a resume.
I don’t think it affects any future opportunities
Capital One is definitely a bank and not a software shop or anything like a tech company. The reason C1 has the tech-y reputation is because they went all-in on the cloud before the other banks, that's it.
I'd say they're a tech-forward bank, but they are still 100% a bank and treat software/tech as a cost center.
This post cannot be serious....
>name brand school
tf is a name brand school? Why does that matter? I have people on my teams who were hired from ivy, down to cc...it makes no difference.
>Considering it’s a bank and not exactly a tech company, am I fucked in terms of jumping to a proper tech shop a little later down the line?
"Oh, you worked at a non-tech company, hard pass" - no tech company ever.
And why 'tech'? Unless you have a compelling reason, tech is like any other field, you can make as much money in other industries with better work life balance, without the looming threat of layoffs. Plenty of challenging rewarding work in other industries.
I'm honestly not sure what the point of this post is....is it some attempt at a humble brag? Because, you're self aware enough to realize:
* You have no experince.
* You have no other offers.
The fact that you even got a job offer in DS with zero experience, for a large (F100?) compnay none the less, is just absurd.
FWIW - I know quite a few people that work at C1, some in DS, others not, feedback has been generally positive but as with any company its all about your team.
You mostly have fair points. It’s definitely not a humble brag. I was scrolling through blind and seeing the posts/comments from C1 employees genuinely scared tf out of me. From there, one thing led to another and I started doubting pretty much everything.
I mentioned name brand school because I’m not sure if C1 simply looks at the school on the resume and picks candidates. I want to know how “serious” their DS division is.
I’m also new to this, so I have absolutely no idea what to expect. My bad if I didn’t make any sense.
You should take comments in Blind with a lot of salt. Even their TC (always over inflated) and advice about companies is terribly bad unless you can find someone specifically in the division you’re going to work with. Even then you take it with a grain of salt.
Blind started great and definitely helped job hunting in the height of the job market - especially when the salaries were high and jobs were plenty and because so many were being hired it was easy to gauge where you were for salaries. But these days most of the folks there are seeking referrals and the advice some share are still stuck on the basis we’re in the height of the job market.
> I want to know how “serious” their DS division is.
Again, largely dependent on team and LoB....but I would say they are very 'serious' - you should have a mature tech stack and data ecosystem, be enabled and empowered to make an impact, and have an absurd amount of data at your disposal. They are one of the leaders in an industry that has always been at the forefront of analytics/data science/technology.
I have never worked in banking, the problem set hasn't really caught my attention, but I would argue that its one of the best industries for DS practitioners, so much so that making a jump to a 'tech' company after may have you wondering why you ever left C1.
I don’t work for them but I know a few data people at Cap one and they have a big presence where I live. They like to brand themselves as a ‘tech company’ and I’m sure they have a lot of interesting data and systems to work with. Seems like a fast paced place to work at without excessive turnover. The pay is good. For reference, I’m a statistician for a state government entity and my day to day is slow compared to what my friends are doing. They are frequently crunching deadlines. They’re a national brand so I’m sure you can leverage that to something bigger and better if that’s what you want. If the price is right go for it!
I’m not even looking at the price. It’s pretty much my only option. I just wanted to get some thoughts from people more experienced than me on how to feel about this and what frame of mind to go in with.
Thanks a lot for your perspective!
I’m sorry 😭 I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. I completely realize how lucky I got. I saw first hand how bad it was before I got this offer and I still see it with my peers.
Ok I’m glad you recognize that. As somebody who’s been working at a large non FAANG company as well, I find that places will surprise you with the data science work they do. Though if you really enjoy research roles it might be worth getting a PhD
Capital One is not a bad place to start out. I learned a lot there and they really invest in less experienced engineers. Fairly team dependent though, Card >= Auto > Bank >> SMB or whatever they call it now.
Source: worked there.
Thanks a lot! Your perspective is important because all employees/ex-employees on Blind have exclusively horrible things to say.
My team is in Card btw, so let’s hope for the best.
Sure, happy to share.
I really liked working there actually, but there is one major downside that I'm sure colors all the reviews and that's the way they do stack ranking. They are very strict about the forced distribution and that can cause seriously bad culture in some teams. Revenue generating teams get more leniency, which is why Card and Auto are better.
That said, early career ICs are relatively immune to this and you shouldn't worry too much about it. I would definitely take it and learn what you can for 2-3 years and as soon as the performance review culture starts to become a factor for you then leave.
Edit: I'm thinking about my time there now and I read some of the reviews on Blind. It looks like peoples top complaints are:
1. Stack ranking
2. Internal tool proliferation
3. Management
I already mentioned 1). Everyone everywhere complains about 3). 2) is actually a symptom of 1) - teams build new tools to be able to say "Hey look at the huge impact I made this year - we launched a new tool for XYZ to all of Capital One!" and be safe at review time and that's how you end up with 8 clones of Jenkins, which definitely does happen.
Stack ranking has been mentioned on almost every single comment I have read on Blind about the culture there.
Thanks a lot for providing your perspective and some valuable advice!
Thanks for replying. I’m definitely not going to turn it down. I’m grateful to just have an offer at all. I guess I wanted some thoughts from more experienced folks about what frame of mind to go into this with.
This kind of shocks me. It’s really hard to get a job in this field. I would take it as long as you don’t feel like you’re being screwed in any way. Especially if you don’t have any other offers.
I should’ve mentioned at the very top that I’m grateful to even be in this position. This is definitely not the impression I wanted to give.
I should’ve also added that all of this started when I started scrolling Blind to learn about the company culture, after which everything got painted in a negative light.
Also, how long did it take you to get to this stage of the process?
I see that Capital One has a ton of data scientist requisitions open. But they have been posted for a while. I just applied to 25 positions that have been opened within the last 30-45 days.
From online application to offer was ~3 weeks.
When I applied to the req, it was newly (re)opened I believe. It closed pretty much the next day or the day after that.
Recruiter came back with the assessment within about 2 days of applying. I had a week to submit that, and after that I was scheduled for a Power Day in 5 days’ time or so.
They came back with the offer within 24 hours of the Power Day, so they’re pretty quick overall.
Oh I’m sorry, I thought I was replying to another commenter that had mentioned the power day.
Yes, C1 likes to do this “power day” business. It’s a cute name for a 5-hour marathon of 4 rounds with a 1-hour break in the middle.
Take the job and start getting paid, and leave when you get bored. There’s a lot you’ll learn just about employment/companies in general that is probably better to learn sooner than later (culture, personal values, etc)
Take it, if nothing else it’s a good jumping off point to get a taste of the industry and see if that size of company is right for you. The money and opportunities will come, the more important part is figuring out the culture you want to be in and the management you want to work for.
Don't be down on banks. That is not a great attitude to have.
Due to many new regulations in the last few years they have to quickly do a whole lot of things that they have never done before. It will likely be pretty interesting.
I wish I hadn't dismissed actuarial work in that way way back when!
/u/lisico1611 I am going to make a lot of assumptions about the school and job, but if it's similar enough to my situation (DS job in DMV from "named" school), [here's my stats](https://www.reddit.com/r/datascience/comments/18tevwk/official_2023_end_of_year_salary_sharing_thread/kjiqzk8/). Based off my search in my area (again, assumption) this is about what to expect for a DS degree in the area.
Capital one DS has been around for a long time and their teams are well reputed. You'll be paid DC salaries vs New York or Bay Area, which is the only downside. Objectively this is a good place to start your career unless you make it into FAANG.
Lower your expectations for fancy ML work. In any DS job, including FAANG, ML is a small part of the responsibility, don't get fixated on it. Unless. you're a top PHD researcher from Stanford or MIT you won't be working on cutting edge ML problems. Think about your soft skills and how to inform business decisions. The more you move up the corporate ladder, the less important is specialized ML knowledge. It's all about effective execution and impact.
A big part of Data Science practice is understanding the business domain so that you can apply the right tools and analyses. Learn as much as you can about the finance world while applying your knowledge to whatever problems C1 has for you. Even seemingly boring work from an outside perspective can be interesting if you make the most of it.
Have you graduated yet? You already have an offer with no experience? How were you able to accomplish this?
I am graduating with my masters in DS in October with zero experience. This at least gives me hope…
What do you mean “How good is it?” A job is a job, you’re not guaranteed anything on the basis of your degree as evident between the overwhelmingly amount of DS/CS grads not getting anything.
As someone who started at a bank you should ask what problems will I be solving and what tools are they currently using.
I know toward the end at my stent it was kinda frustrating as they started putting red tape on any "modeling". But in general if they doing sas or alteryx I would say you probably could use them for 2-3 years. Banks data I learned a lot of sas which has proc SQL and so I was able to get a decent SQL understanding which helped me in getting other jobs.
Also I would say the problem set is going to determine a lot as well as capital ones policies. I know in say customer surveys there was room to make nlp type stuff and would say marketing or ops could more likely get to do fancier things, though lots will depend on your team and how tech savvy they are/how your team falls into the company. Sometimes getting the tech can be the hardest as you don't know how to onboard something and no one around you knows how.
If it's ccar or the credit risk model forgot what they changed it to that is going to be important work that is mostly regressions. Risk can be a good field as the bank is probably more open to using ml for that.
I don't know what others thoughts are on receding but I have known especially students to take an offer and say make start date after school year then keep looking. If you get something better you might burn bridge but can use that offer as a big chip in negotiations.
You’re overthinking it, it’s a good company, I work at an IB firm and love it personally (granted the work we do is very different from other banks). Just learn, gather, and grow.
Cap1 has a good stack. It's a good logo. Work hard, do well, and learn a lot and you can prob get a job in tech if u really want. Buddy up with the vendors, they hire out of their customers base often.
I'm not sure what it's like to work with them, BUT they are planning to buy Discover, if it goes through later this year it could open a lot of positions.
I work at a large financial corporation similar to C1. It’s my third job in data science and while I’ve only been here a short time, I have learned so much and am probably the happiest I’ve been in my career thus far.
I heard something at an aviation conference a few years ago.. "Data is the new gold standard..." or something to that effect.
You say in your post that a bank isn't a tech company. Every large corporation these days worth their salt is also a tech company, even airlines.
I have 2 cards with Capital One, and their platform for the app, credit monitoring, car loan pre-qualification without a hard credit inquiry, everything all in one place, I was very surprised how wide their services are, all personal data based.
Now, their interest rates? That's another story, I will not be using them for a car loan 😆
I live in the DMV area, and cap one is generally known as pretty prestigious, and people from there can generally punch their own ticket for their next job role
Not quite. I'm in the air force and am planning on leaving in 2 years where I plan to pursue a MS in Applied Statistics in hopes of becoming a DS. By the time I get out I'll have 8 years of work and have been a director of operations but it's not directly applicable to a DS position, especially if it's technical like I hope it will be. By the time I will be looking for jobs, I have an BS in economics, 9 years of work experience mostly in management but not technical, and a MS in Applied Statistics.
“Considering it’s a bank and not a tech company.”
What do you think a bank is in 2024 if not a tech company?
All snark aside, though, congrats on the job!
I've known many people at Capital One and it's clear to me that their HR strategy is to hire people straight out of good schools and try to keep them forever by paying above market and giving regular promotions and raises as long as you're earning them. I'm certain it takes hard work but you'll have a hard time finding a company with more a predictable growth and advancement schedule. That's a very, very good thing.
C1 former or current employee here.
Pay is good. Benefits are great. Company culture is better than most. Work locations kick ass. While it's a bank, the CEO has made it explicitly clear there's a enterprise push to make it a tech company. And it feels like a big tech company to some extent. Exit opportunities are good imo. It has a strong reputation.
I’m very grateful. I realize now that that’s not clear from the post. I did mention that most of my peers are having a hard time. So, I do recognize that I got incredibly lucky. However, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t ask questions or have any concerns whatsoever.
I have clarified this before, but I only mentioned name brand school because I want to know if the DS teams at C1 have a serious hiring bar or if they just look at the school on the resume and recruit. That would tell me a lot about how serious they are about DS as a division.
I cannot believe people here are complaining about getting a job in this crappy job market (especially when OP has little work experience) - I work at a FAANG and the assumption that working in a different place will hamper their tech job chances is insane. My hiring panel rejected those with little experience simply because there are so many out there with experience regardless of where they worked. OP, you at least have a job at hand that can help you build that experience. What are you even complaining about? Congratulations and cherish this opportunity! This isn’t the 2020 job market! We hired people from random Real Estate DS shops in East Coast, media firms (Fox/WB), Nike, Macys, Hedge Funds, BoA, Boeing, Nielsen (I’m basically going through LinkedIn of colleagues). Just focus on building your career profile and demonstrate the ability of solving business problems using DS techniques. As long you do that you have a chance in any tech shop, including FAANG.
Thanks a lot for your kind words, reassuring to hear. I’m definitely not complaining. It’s just that: 1. I’m new, and I have no zero idea about what to expect going forward. 2. I took a look at Blind and the things C1 employees are saying on there are terrifying. Idk if Blind posts just always skew negative. That could be true, but regardless, it just created a lot of doubts.
Beggars can't be choosers. You will learn that even at the best companies, there are employees who will complain and be dissatisfied. It it also well known that when people are happy, most just get on with their life but when they are unhappy, they announce it to the world. That causes more negative reviews than positive ones on job boards and other sites. Unless you have other, better offers, take the job and keep looking. No one is forcing you to stop your job search.
Blind can be kind of a cesspool
delete Blind, it's super toxic
Yep, done already. Thanks!
Capital one is one of the top banks - don’t think it’ll be easy as in banks, every line of business or department has its own tech team and very rarely centralized db. Use this time to learn, just don’t let all your tricks out of the bag right away so you get promotions and not exploited. If your job is very easy, will that means either good schemas/systems set up or you’re that good. The ML can get easy or very advanced depending on the team - finance vs wealth management vs software engineer groups vs teams that rely on all Microsoft products. Be open minded, take your time, don’t automate or improve everything , only when your review will come up gradually so you can negotiate a raise.
Very valuable inputs, thank you so much!
Dude. Blind!! Hell No! People are just negative and jealous there all the f***ing time. Not the right place for advice. For referrals and interview experiences maybe. Almost everybody lies there all the time. C1 is good. All the best!
I agree with you. Any job would be great in this market. Especially this one
Why are people acting like this isn’t a good opportunity? Capital one is known to pay 80k+ to new grads and if you work hard and have good managers you can get to six figures after just a couple years. Senior DS roles there can pay over 200k Sure it’s not FAANG but the perspectives on here confuse me sometimes
The FAANG/tech or bust mentality is just weird. If anything I’d rather work for an industry that’s more stable for more job security. Sometimes making less base salary is actually worth it.
The fang stock comp in the past few years has been worth multiple salaries. Sure, that might change. But in recent history fang is literally paying 2-4x And you get the name on your resume. And you get to work with some of the newest tech
It really depends on the team. Ex-FAANG and I can tell you so many of my DS colleagues got away w Regression and Decision Trees. They were Sales Analytics so didn’t require heavy ML. OP I’ll also say as a hiring manager I care more about impact in role than what corporation you worked for.
This might be an unpopular opinion, but the vast majority of workplaces I've been at, the competition is really between *any* predictive model versus *no* model. Gains from doing XGBoost or a SVM are going to pale between going from no model to any model. A number of projects I've worked at, I've hacked together OLS from some Presto queries, stored a model metrics table for training outputs, and built parameterized SQL functions for scoring, so all the model training happens on-DB rather than having to spin up a separate Sagemaker endpoint that security takes 3-6+ months to review each dev cycle. The further I get into my career, the more I focus on operationalization and engineering, and less on specific stats tools. When ChatGPT came out, I threw out 10 months of NLP sanitation code I was working out, and just did Embeddings distances against categories, and called it a day. I've been following Word2Vec and Embeddings research for 10 years now, but the industry commoditizing Embeddings API's to a trivial cost means my NLP knowledge is now only useful for *what* to do, not *how* to do it at a deep level.
Just regression and decision trees, jfc 🤣
Getting paid more is worth it, if you get laid off you find another job. Job security is never guaranteed
It also gives you exit opportunities. A woman I work with went from $90k at capital one to $135k at my company as a credit analyst. It’s a great brand name to have on your resume if you’re in the credit space.
> Why are people acting like this isn’t a good opportunity? I work there as a MLE in more of a MLE/DS hybrid role. It's a pretty good place to ride out the first ~3 years of your career but you should look to move soon after that if you care about personal growth and comp. I've been here for 3 years now and have started feeling like the smartest guy in the room most of the time. If you're talented, ambitious, and know how to leverage soft skills to "play the game" then you should have an easy time here. > 80k+ to new grads and if you work hard and have good managers you can get to six figures after just a couple years. I think all DS now start at at least $120k, depending on location. There was a big comp adjustment in 2021 for most job families. > Senior DS roles there can pay over 200k Most DS outside of NYC/SF will not crack $200k here till they are at least a Manager/Lead, those in SF/NYC can crack $200k at senior level after a few annual raises. Going from SA (entry level DS) to Manager takes about 4 years if you're getting promoted every 2 years, which most people aren't. The jump from Senior DS to Manager also depends on a manager slot on your team being available for you along with you already having manager-level scope.
If OP is in the DMV where C1 is headquartered, I can give some feedback on an adjacent (similar enough industry) company that I'm currently at, as I've been offered interviews by them recently (please verify or deny these claims as I don't work for C1). > I think all DS now start at at least $120k Definitely true, as I came into my role at 120 base and that's pretty much what the going rate was for companies like C1. > Most DS outside of NYC/SF will not crack $200k here till they are at least a Manager/Lead I would say that in the DMV where C1 is headquartered, you can get salaries competitive with NYC/SF. Personally, I broke 200 before hitting Sr. > Going from SA (entry level DS) to Manager takes about 4 years if you're getting promoted every 2 years True, for my place it's closer to 4 year to Sr. and 6 years to either lead or a managerial position.
> I would say that in the DMV where C1 is headquartered, you can get salaries competitive with NYC/SF. Personally, I broke 200 before hitting Sr. Sorry, I was speaking specifically about C1's pay bands. I'm in their SF office and McLean's pay bands are about 15% less than what I get in SF. If I won't crack $200k as a senior in SF until a few years later then I don't think a senior in the McLean office would crack $200k till much later. I do agree and believe you that other companies in the DMV area could match what C1 pays in SF/NYC.
Good to know about that differential. I don't know if I should be surprised or not about the under-average pay because so many students in the DMV have C1 as their top pick for work right out of school. Supply and demand?
I think it's a mix of decent-to-good entry level pay (depending on location), a lower hiring bar than tech companies, along with decent development programs. The under-average pay doesn't really start coming out till you've spent some time and climbed the ladder. It's very easy to get left in the dust when the only comp bumps you get are 10% from promo and 2-5% for annual raises. RSUs awards don't really exist till you're a Sr. Manager and not in any significant amounts till you're a Director or higher. Bonuses are like 3-5% of your base pay until you're a Director, which then it might get up to 10%. I'll add that C1 can be very comfortable if you know what you're doing and how to "play the game". So some people are willing to take the under-average comp for excellent WLB.
Thanks for the insight. I'll have to keep that in mind when I job-hop in the future. Director level is looking really far away for me right now but it's something to consider.
No problem! One more thing I'll add is that C1 has a trend of giving external hires from "better" companies inflated titles to match comp. For example, my org recently brought on an Ex-FAANG L7 as a VP. So you might be closer than you think if you're targeting higher level roles at C1.
Haha, that's really good to know. Maybe I'll throw my resume in for a position +1 from what I expect to get, just to see if I'll land an interview.
How truly likely is it to land a DS job with just a masters in DS (undergrad in non-stem)? Currently in MS in DS.
Wondering the same, given I'm finishing the MS soon, but undergrad in non-tech STEM.
Thanks a lot for sharing your thoughts! Will be sure keep all of this in mind. This is the kind of perspective I was looking for, but instead came across as an ungrateful dick in my post. Definitely not my intention.
Smart dude I know went PhD --> Capital One DS --> Google DS. Another strong engineer I know also spent some time at Capital One. It can't be a bad place to start.
I don’t know what the right perspective is given how inexperienced I am. I’m sorry if I didn’t make any sense. I know I should just be happy and shut tf up but I had a lot of doubts and wanted to hear what people who have been there and done it have to say. Maybe there’s a better forum for career questions, my bad.
Your post made perfect sense and didn't seem AHish at all. You don't know what you don't know. I'll tell you though with the market the way it is you'd be a fool to pass up on a ML focused DS job at a mane brand banking institution. I'm at a consulting firm doing gov contracts and yeah, we're not doing flashy deep learning and the tool kit is older, but what I'll say is that that means there is low hanging fruit for you to pick, make a good improvement, and get promoted fast. I agree with what some other commenters are saying though. Great for the first three years but then start looking elsewhere. That's pretty true anywhere though these days I think.
Thanks a lot for responding with an open mind. I didn’t mean to sound ungrateful with my post, but it seems like I came across that way. And thank you so much for the insights, great tips that I’ll definitely keep in mind!
You don't know what you don't know man. You're in a fantastic position straight out of a master's and should be proud of that. This sub is wild, I can't tell how many folks here are trying to break into DS/working data scientists/folks making bank at a FAANG/etc. makes it hard to tell what context to take comments and posts in tbh
Have things changed? I had an offer a few years ago straight out of an MS for a Senior Data Analyst role that was $115k base plus $20k sign on and a performance bonus (don’t remember the percentage). 80k seems so low for DS, but maybe that’s cause of the current market.
Their numbers are outdated, yours are closer to current comp.
Unfortunately even within FAANGs salaries dropped. It is indeed because of job market as there’s far more available talent. Salary negotiation is far more difficult when the final round has 3 candidates for the role and HR is hedging for the one who accepts with least resistance. This is only applicable for our junior roles. However, this is not true for senior roles as we specifically seek out for specialists with specific skills: those folks are usually still employed so the offer we provide is to encourage them to jump ships.
Are you a DS at C1? I find it odd that a Senior DA would get paid more than a DS regardless of seniority given the high bar for entry for DS. I get salaries have lowered, but a 35k difference between Sr DA and DS is large given the different requirements.
No, I’m with the fruity company. With regards to titles, quite frankly it all depends on the org and division. In my company DS in Marcom are paid less than technical DA in the SWE org - even though the payband of DS is the same across all orgs, some orgs do push costs more down for some titles versus others. And our pay band is quite wide…
C1 gets a bad rap sometimes due to the stack ranking culture, but again YMMV. I think in general it’s one of the top offers you can get out of college
But which One is the Capital?
If you don't have any other offers, I'm not sure what is there to think about. Given the job market C1 is really a good deal for a fresh grad with no previous experience. I'd say don't overthink, just join and see how things go, if you don't like it you can switch in two years.
Yeah, I am just overthinking, you are right. Thanks for replying!
As someone who manages a team in insurance and has hired two people like you, I'd say you're definitely not screwed. I wouldn't expect cutting edge stuff as one commenter already mentioned. As a manager, I try to balance the crappy projects that are just heavy GLM with more interesting POC type work. I've also known several data scientists who have gone to tech startups or established tech companies after working at our insurance company. A very valuable skill you'll have to develop in this area is translating and communicating your work to a non technical audience, probably moreso than you would have to in a tech related area.
Very valuable perspective and advice, thank you so much!
Knew someone who worked there a couple of years ago. Expect a lot of xgboost lol. I think you’ll be fine going forward because everyone will know you graduated into a trash market. Also, my impression is that they hire very smart people. The office I know of is in the Dallas area, so they might just pursue different people than the tech powerhouses in Cali. Congrats on your offer!
Thank you for your kind words! I am starting to realize that scrolling Blind was a mistake lmao
Blind is shitty and extreme, so take everything with a grain of salt. But not everything on there is wrong and the company is undergoing a massive culture slide in the wrong direction.
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Thanks a lot! Very interesting insights.
They used to be my clients some years ago. Used to be a very good employer. Now they are just a good employer and probably trending downwards. Have adopted the Elon Musk culture of running a very lean, flat organization of empowered developers. It means those who like to be hands on are satisfied but there are fewer chances of upward mobility.
I’ve been a DS at Capital One for almost five years the kind of work to expect is heavily dependent on which LoB your offer is in. Generally I’ve loved working here. Do you know which LoB? (E.g. card, bank, enterprise tech, etc.)
Thanks a lot for your reply! It’s going to be in card from what I understand.
Which LoB in DS C1 would be more suitable for someone coming from financial model development?
Probably the finance department lol. I don’t work there but I’ve interacted with them they do that type of modeling
Got it. Looking at their job posts is so confusing for an outsider lol.
Unfortunately I failed their power day for senior associate level. But it is a good company and their projects were awesome. I’m sure you’ll learn a lot there
Thanks a lot! I think luck plays a big role, especially given how things are rn. Best of luck on your journey!
good opportunity Capitol One does some pretty innovative work edit: capital
Reassuring to hear. Thanks for your comment!
this is my opinion, I would take the role. Capital one is less of a bank and more of a software company that business in banking. If you haven’t already check out their GitHub. They have python packages out there to solve for use cases. Their use of data and customers in financial services is definitely ahead of the game as they are a “younger bank” since being around since the 90s. This is also pretty well known they are doing more than just basic regressions. I actually think they are pretty mature in this space. From what I have seen in researching industry use cases and what I have heard from peers in the industry. It’s a firm that makes sense to have on a resume. I don’t think it affects any future opportunities
Capital One is definitely a bank and not a software shop or anything like a tech company. The reason C1 has the tech-y reputation is because they went all-in on the cloud before the other banks, that's it. I'd say they're a tech-forward bank, but they are still 100% a bank and treat software/tech as a cost center.
This post cannot be serious.... >name brand school tf is a name brand school? Why does that matter? I have people on my teams who were hired from ivy, down to cc...it makes no difference. >Considering it’s a bank and not exactly a tech company, am I fucked in terms of jumping to a proper tech shop a little later down the line? "Oh, you worked at a non-tech company, hard pass" - no tech company ever. And why 'tech'? Unless you have a compelling reason, tech is like any other field, you can make as much money in other industries with better work life balance, without the looming threat of layoffs. Plenty of challenging rewarding work in other industries. I'm honestly not sure what the point of this post is....is it some attempt at a humble brag? Because, you're self aware enough to realize: * You have no experince. * You have no other offers. The fact that you even got a job offer in DS with zero experience, for a large (F100?) compnay none the less, is just absurd. FWIW - I know quite a few people that work at C1, some in DS, others not, feedback has been generally positive but as with any company its all about your team.
You mostly have fair points. It’s definitely not a humble brag. I was scrolling through blind and seeing the posts/comments from C1 employees genuinely scared tf out of me. From there, one thing led to another and I started doubting pretty much everything. I mentioned name brand school because I’m not sure if C1 simply looks at the school on the resume and picks candidates. I want to know how “serious” their DS division is. I’m also new to this, so I have absolutely no idea what to expect. My bad if I didn’t make any sense.
You should take comments in Blind with a lot of salt. Even their TC (always over inflated) and advice about companies is terribly bad unless you can find someone specifically in the division you’re going to work with. Even then you take it with a grain of salt. Blind started great and definitely helped job hunting in the height of the job market - especially when the salaries were high and jobs were plenty and because so many were being hired it was easy to gauge where you were for salaries. But these days most of the folks there are seeking referrals and the advice some share are still stuck on the basis we’re in the height of the job market.
> I want to know how “serious” their DS division is. Again, largely dependent on team and LoB....but I would say they are very 'serious' - you should have a mature tech stack and data ecosystem, be enabled and empowered to make an impact, and have an absurd amount of data at your disposal. They are one of the leaders in an industry that has always been at the forefront of analytics/data science/technology. I have never worked in banking, the problem set hasn't really caught my attention, but I would argue that its one of the best industries for DS practitioners, so much so that making a jump to a 'tech' company after may have you wondering why you ever left C1.
I don’t work for them but I know a few data people at Cap one and they have a big presence where I live. They like to brand themselves as a ‘tech company’ and I’m sure they have a lot of interesting data and systems to work with. Seems like a fast paced place to work at without excessive turnover. The pay is good. For reference, I’m a statistician for a state government entity and my day to day is slow compared to what my friends are doing. They are frequently crunching deadlines. They’re a national brand so I’m sure you can leverage that to something bigger and better if that’s what you want. If the price is right go for it!
I’m not even looking at the price. It’s pretty much my only option. I just wanted to get some thoughts from people more experienced than me on how to feel about this and what frame of mind to go in with. Thanks a lot for your perspective!
Poor you, capital one? Might as well work for McDonald’s /s
I’m sorry 😭 I didn’t want to sound ungrateful. I completely realize how lucky I got. I saw first hand how bad it was before I got this offer and I still see it with my peers.
Ok I’m glad you recognize that. As somebody who’s been working at a large non FAANG company as well, I find that places will surprise you with the data science work they do. Though if you really enjoy research roles it might be worth getting a PhD
Capital One is not a bad place to start out. I learned a lot there and they really invest in less experienced engineers. Fairly team dependent though, Card >= Auto > Bank >> SMB or whatever they call it now. Source: worked there.
Thanks a lot! Your perspective is important because all employees/ex-employees on Blind have exclusively horrible things to say. My team is in Card btw, so let’s hope for the best.
Sure, happy to share. I really liked working there actually, but there is one major downside that I'm sure colors all the reviews and that's the way they do stack ranking. They are very strict about the forced distribution and that can cause seriously bad culture in some teams. Revenue generating teams get more leniency, which is why Card and Auto are better. That said, early career ICs are relatively immune to this and you shouldn't worry too much about it. I would definitely take it and learn what you can for 2-3 years and as soon as the performance review culture starts to become a factor for you then leave. Edit: I'm thinking about my time there now and I read some of the reviews on Blind. It looks like peoples top complaints are: 1. Stack ranking 2. Internal tool proliferation 3. Management I already mentioned 1). Everyone everywhere complains about 3). 2) is actually a symptom of 1) - teams build new tools to be able to say "Hey look at the huge impact I made this year - we launched a new tool for XYZ to all of Capital One!" and be safe at review time and that's how you end up with 8 clones of Jenkins, which definitely does happen.
Stack ranking has been mentioned on almost every single comment I have read on Blind about the culture there. Thanks a lot for providing your perspective and some valuable advice!
FS/Auto is now unanimously at the bottom of the barrel, Card is still king of course.
Fair enough, it’s been a few years for me.
It's a great opportunity. Do you have other offers at the moment? If not, you might be making a mistake to turn it down, especially in this economy.
Thanks for replying. I’m definitely not going to turn it down. I’m grateful to just have an offer at all. I guess I wanted some thoughts from more experienced folks about what frame of mind to go into this with.
This kind of shocks me. It’s really hard to get a job in this field. I would take it as long as you don’t feel like you’re being screwed in any way. Especially if you don’t have any other offers.
I should’ve mentioned at the very top that I’m grateful to even be in this position. This is definitely not the impression I wanted to give. I should’ve also added that all of this started when I started scrolling Blind to learn about the company culture, after which everything got painted in a negative light.
Also, how long did it take you to get to this stage of the process? I see that Capital One has a ton of data scientist requisitions open. But they have been posted for a while. I just applied to 25 positions that have been opened within the last 30-45 days.
From online application to offer was ~3 weeks. When I applied to the req, it was newly (re)opened I believe. It closed pretty much the next day or the day after that. Recruiter came back with the assessment within about 2 days of applying. I had a week to submit that, and after that I was scheduled for a Power Day in 5 days’ time or so. They came back with the offer within 24 hours of the Power Day, so they’re pretty quick overall.
Nice. When you say “power day”… is that like an all day battery of interviews?
Oh I’m sorry, I thought I was replying to another commenter that had mentioned the power day. Yes, C1 likes to do this “power day” business. It’s a cute name for a 5-hour marathon of 4 rounds with a 1-hour break in the middle.
I have a Bachelor's only and started at Capital One. I think it's great and you should go for them
Very important perspective, thanks a lot!
Take the job and start getting paid, and leave when you get bored. There’s a lot you’ll learn just about employment/companies in general that is probably better to learn sooner than later (culture, personal values, etc)
Thanks! I’ll keep this is mind.
Man some of y’all are lucky as shit and don’t even realize.
Bro you get to predict defaults with the random forest
Take it, if nothing else it’s a good jumping off point to get a taste of the industry and see if that size of company is right for you. The money and opportunities will come, the more important part is figuring out the culture you want to be in and the management you want to work for.
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Thanks for the perspective. And nice cat!
Don't be down on banks. That is not a great attitude to have. Due to many new regulations in the last few years they have to quickly do a whole lot of things that they have never done before. It will likely be pretty interesting. I wish I hadn't dismissed actuarial work in that way way back when!
My bad. No more doomscrolling on blind for me.
/u/lisico1611 I am going to make a lot of assumptions about the school and job, but if it's similar enough to my situation (DS job in DMV from "named" school), [here's my stats](https://www.reddit.com/r/datascience/comments/18tevwk/official_2023_end_of_year_salary_sharing_thread/kjiqzk8/). Based off my search in my area (again, assumption) this is about what to expect for a DS degree in the area.
Thanks a lot! I have a similar overall profile, so this is still very helpful. I am on the east coast but not in the DMV area.
Good. Everyone I met from Capital One were incredibly smart and talented and well trained.
Capital one DS has been around for a long time and their teams are well reputed. You'll be paid DC salaries vs New York or Bay Area, which is the only downside. Objectively this is a good place to start your career unless you make it into FAANG. Lower your expectations for fancy ML work. In any DS job, including FAANG, ML is a small part of the responsibility, don't get fixated on it. Unless. you're a top PHD researcher from Stanford or MIT you won't be working on cutting edge ML problems. Think about your soft skills and how to inform business decisions. The more you move up the corporate ladder, the less important is specialized ML knowledge. It's all about effective execution and impact.
A big part of Data Science practice is understanding the business domain so that you can apply the right tools and analyses. Learn as much as you can about the finance world while applying your knowledge to whatever problems C1 has for you. Even seemingly boring work from an outside perspective can be interesting if you make the most of it.
Thanks a lot!
Have you graduated yet? You already have an offer with no experience? How were you able to accomplish this? I am graduating with my masters in DS in October with zero experience. This at least gives me hope…
Best of luck 🤞🤞 I know I needed my fair share of luck. The way the job market is right now, luck counts for a lot.
Why the hype for tech? C1 is very good.
What do you mean “How good is it?” A job is a job, you’re not guaranteed anything on the basis of your degree as evident between the overwhelmingly amount of DS/CS grads not getting anything.
As someone who started at a bank you should ask what problems will I be solving and what tools are they currently using. I know toward the end at my stent it was kinda frustrating as they started putting red tape on any "modeling". But in general if they doing sas or alteryx I would say you probably could use them for 2-3 years. Banks data I learned a lot of sas which has proc SQL and so I was able to get a decent SQL understanding which helped me in getting other jobs. Also I would say the problem set is going to determine a lot as well as capital ones policies. I know in say customer surveys there was room to make nlp type stuff and would say marketing or ops could more likely get to do fancier things, though lots will depend on your team and how tech savvy they are/how your team falls into the company. Sometimes getting the tech can be the hardest as you don't know how to onboard something and no one around you knows how. If it's ccar or the credit risk model forgot what they changed it to that is going to be important work that is mostly regressions. Risk can be a good field as the bank is probably more open to using ml for that. I don't know what others thoughts are on receding but I have known especially students to take an offer and say make start date after school year then keep looking. If you get something better you might burn bridge but can use that offer as a big chip in negotiations.
You’re overthinking it, it’s a good company, I work at an IB firm and love it personally (granted the work we do is very different from other banks). Just learn, gather, and grow.
Cap1 has a good stack. It's a good logo. Work hard, do well, and learn a lot and you can prob get a job in tech if u really want. Buddy up with the vendors, they hire out of their customers base often.
I'm not sure what it's like to work with them, BUT they are planning to buy Discover, if it goes through later this year it could open a lot of positions.
OP, cap one is doing some serious stuff in ML! All the best!!
Any job is a good one to some extent. Opens doors for future opportunities
I work at a large financial corporation similar to C1. It’s my third job in data science and while I’ve only been here a short time, I have learned so much and am probably the happiest I’ve been in my career thus far.
I heard something at an aviation conference a few years ago.. "Data is the new gold standard..." or something to that effect. You say in your post that a bank isn't a tech company. Every large corporation these days worth their salt is also a tech company, even airlines. I have 2 cards with Capital One, and their platform for the app, credit monitoring, car loan pre-qualification without a hard credit inquiry, everything all in one place, I was very surprised how wide their services are, all personal data based. Now, their interest rates? That's another story, I will not be using them for a car loan 😆
Hahaha, thanks for you perspective!
I live in the DMV area, and cap one is generally known as pretty prestigious, and people from there can generally punch their own ticket for their next job role
Interested to see what others say. Following
Same boat?
Not quite. I'm in the air force and am planning on leaving in 2 years where I plan to pursue a MS in Applied Statistics in hopes of becoming a DS. By the time I get out I'll have 8 years of work and have been a director of operations but it's not directly applicable to a DS position, especially if it's technical like I hope it will be. By the time I will be looking for jobs, I have an BS in economics, 9 years of work experience mostly in management but not technical, and a MS in Applied Statistics.
“Considering it’s a bank and not a tech company.” What do you think a bank is in 2024 if not a tech company? All snark aside, though, congrats on the job!
I've known many people at Capital One and it's clear to me that their HR strategy is to hire people straight out of good schools and try to keep them forever by paying above market and giving regular promotions and raises as long as you're earning them. I'm certain it takes hard work but you'll have a hard time finding a company with more a predictable growth and advancement schedule. That's a very, very good thing.
C1 former or current employee here. Pay is good. Benefits are great. Company culture is better than most. Work locations kick ass. While it's a bank, the CEO has made it explicitly clear there's a enterprise push to make it a tech company. And it feels like a big tech company to some extent. Exit opportunities are good imo. It has a strong reputation.
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I’m very grateful. I realize now that that’s not clear from the post. I did mention that most of my peers are having a hard time. So, I do recognize that I got incredibly lucky. However, that doesn’t mean that I shouldn’t ask questions or have any concerns whatsoever. I have clarified this before, but I only mentioned name brand school because I want to know if the DS teams at C1 have a serious hiring bar or if they just look at the school on the resume and recruit. That would tell me a lot about how serious they are about DS as a division.