Pros
Extremely professional organization. The people are very well-qualified and dedicated to their mission. Fascinating to see the internals of how the mortgage industry actually works in this country. Fannie Mae has been unfairly vilified as a cause of the mortgage collapse. In fact, they are required to buy loans sight-unseen from the originators, which provided a great opportunity for fraudulent mortgage brokers. Why the law was written like that is an enduring mystery! Finally, it is a very diverse workforce demographically.
Cons
The employee evaluation system for non-managers is arranged so that 50% of the evaluation is based on a "360 degree" view, and only 50% on quality of work -- meaning that non-managers must be popular to stay. When coupled with the HR "stacking" policy in which the bottom 5% of the staff is targeted for termination each year, and the heavy emphasis on using contractors and term employees, the result is that the permanent employee cadre are very homogenous in outlook and style of thought. Which is ironic, since the demographics are quite varied. So, unfortunately, conformity is rampant, and divergent thinking isn't encouraged. Also, the dominant culture is one of brevity in speech -- "it is better to keep silent and be thought a fool, than to speak and remove all doubt." The result is a certain type of group-think, which is one of the reasons (I believe) why the organization was so easily defrauded by Countrywide and other bad actors who sold them completely bogus mortgages.
