Delta IT is the Wild West of IT, hyper focused on DEI, RTO and Offshoring
Pros
People are nice, good benefits. Travel benefits COULD be a bonus.
Cons
Delta is no longer what it was before the pandemic at least in the IT department. This company lost a lot of people through buyout/layoffs during the pandemic and also recent layoffs so the company can grow its presence offshore. It is very common for one person to own multiple applications/systems as everyone on the team have left through retirement/attrition. The “lucky” individual who is left usually have little KT and is always on call to support whatever issue that comes across which makes the person’s work life balance virtually non existent. The expectation is extremely high and impossible to achieve especially with all the after hour support (RFC) that usually start at 2AM ET. To top things off, the CIO could care less how hard people work as long as they come in the office. You will find that the work is overwhelming and a lot of the work are done quickly and pushed into production with little testing in order to meet deadlines. It is very common to find only one person doing the work where it should have been done by multiple developers because of lack of resource. RTO is such a big deal that manager are told to “let people go” if they do not come into office 50-80% as they are supposed to. When management tells people to come into the office, they use other tech companies as example, but Delta does not have all the perks of tech companies such free meals, good working environment etc as you will likely be working in a small cube in a large “cube farm” with little else. Initially when Delta started RTO (many companies were still remote), they tried to entice people with lunch gatherings but those quickly became Pot Lucks where employees are expected to bring food, however, so little food was brought that you ended up getting a bite or two literally… everything was done cheap. Delta IT is trying to increase its presence overseas at the expense of employees at both Atlanta and Minneapolis., do not be surprised if you are expected to sign in super early so you can collaborate with your counterpart overseas even if you have had to support a 2-4AM RFC. The travel benefits are nice but the general rule is, if you have to be somewhere at a certain time, it is best to just buy a ticket which Delta does gives it’s employees discount on airfare. If you do non-revenue (non-rev) flying, it is possible to travel the world at very little cost, however most flights are packed with paying passengers and your likelihood of getting a seat during peak periods (summer and holidays), are slim to none. It is not uncommon to hear of employee who are on leisure travel, get stuck somewhere as they cannot get on a flight back home. Also as a new employee, you will have the lowest seniority when it comes to getting on a flight, you will see there are many other non-revs ahead of you and nothing is more demoralizing than to see others get on as you are left behind. Delta calls itself a family but you will quickly find it is anything but. If you want to see how nasty Delta employees can be to each other, just go to Facebook and look for Delta Nonrev, there you will see how bitter people can be. It is not surprising Delta had a major IT meltdown, started by the bad Crowdstrike patch. Delta tries to invest in really “neat” things like augmented reality which has little value or much of a use case, rather than investing in its people, modernizing applications. Delta literally looks for ways to do more with less.
