Pros
TIAA-CREF was founded by Andrew Carnegie to provide for the retirement of teachers and other people who devote their lives to serving others in 1917. Almost 100 years later, this service mentality persists among all the employees here. TIAA-CREF is unique among financial services firms in NYC in that there really are no mean-spirited people. It is a remarkably stable company with advantages that are unreplicable in the marketplace ensuring it will be around for a long time to come. Managers are genuinely interested in your career growth and there is tremendous effort placed in making sure this is a great place to work. Employees are encouraged to take all of their PTO every year (which is a lot), as well as when I had my child, I took my full paternity leave of two weeks and actually got questioned if I had enough time off. This spirit actually inspires people to give more of themselves to the company, and those that can manage the unique culture become intensely loyal to the firm with many people having very long careers.
Cons
The organization is very bureaucratic and consensus driven such that it can take a long time to get things done. Similarly, it has grown very large which results in overlapping teams in different departments pursuing the same thing, often in conflict with each other. Individuals generally avoid taking personal accountability (which is ironic because it is one of our values) to spread blame for things not going well among as many people as possible. The is a big logjam of middle managers who appear to have first priority for anything approaching a senior level job, which limits career opportunities up to a certain point. I will say that there are initiatives underway to address all of these issues, but whether or not they work remains to be seen.