Decent Place to Work - Technical Director Charles Schwab Employee Review

3.0
Jan 19, 2009
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Schwab provides a nice work environment in which you are expected to "do the best work of your life". The salary is on-par or slightly above par when compared with the gammut of industries in SF. The benefits package is one of the best in the SF area. The bonuses for the SF area are pretty decent, especially when you compare to other industries. Schwab also stresses achieving a work life balance, but that is dependent on your group and manager. Overall, the package provides for a pretty good experience and the opportunities within the company are pretty good. You should definitely consider this as a place to work.

Cons

Schwab hires and fires (aka layoffs) with Wall Street cycles. Recently, with all of the financial turmoil, Schwab has faired slightly better than other companies in the industry, but has been doing layoffs almost on a reguilar basis for quite some time. With all of the cost cutting, some of the recent strategic moves are questionable. Lots of politics involved in working there and you must play the game if you want to advance. If you're in the IT area, you always have to worry about being outsourced since Schwab does a fair amount of outsourcing. All in all, still not too bad a place to work.

Explore other reviews about Charles Schwab

5.0
Jul 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great community, lots of fun events and work life balance

Cons

Is slow and feels like a retirement job

1.0
Jul 15, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

-Paycheck comes on time most weeks -8% 401k match is very competitive

Cons

-Raises our very low. The “exceeding expectations” raise has been around 3% for the last three years, which is under inflation. -AI is used as the primary way of grading performance, however the way that this AI grades is kept secret from us doing the work. You can have great feedback from client but if the AI scores you low, you will be written up/fired. - Client data entry and account operations have been outsourced to low-quality processors India. Every single day you will deal with issues because of how much sloppy work is being done. There is no follow up or problem-solving regarding these errors, they are just a fact of life at Schwab, and you need to double check pretty much everything being done here. -Most members of leadership, when sharing their personal story, will share that Schwab was their second choice. They call someone who has left Schwab and then come back a “schwabarang” and many members of leadership are Schwabarangs. This can easily be felt in the nature and character of the leadership where the focus is on KPI numbers and keeping costs as low as possible over any kind of improvement of operational effectiveness

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All