M&T Bank reviews

All companies take time to adjust to new practices, save for VC-backed startups. There is no arguing this. However, M&T claims to be a new leader in the "tech transformation" both internally, and as a beacon in Buffalo, NY. The only beacon this represents is one that is lit 24/7 when something is on fire. Expect to find overworked and stressed mid-level developers and practically no competent senior developers left. In the summer of 2020, nearly 16 mid and senior developers walked out after months of frustration and process, paperwork and absolutely no progress on a new flagship product after 3 months in development. The response? Outsource the project to a vendor and start all over again. But if you ask leadership those "tough" questions, they response will always be the same: "These aren't the droids you're looking for." Two years ago, a new "TDP" program was started. This was essentially a program to hire fresh grads from their 4-year degrees (community college and bootcampers need not apply). While the idea behind grooming new developers to the workforce is admirable, and appealing at career fairs (after all, you'll get a free mug, t-shirt and "M&T Tech" in a cool startupy font), most of these TDPs find themselves being mentored by the same incompetent senior developers who believe .NET WebForms is still the future, and that "agile" should be said with a sense of magic and mystery. This program of some 100-150 TDPs rotating through is filling in the gaps of the missing mid-level developers. You have the occasional unicorn TDP, and the majority of the rest truly have significant potential. But, without solid tech leads and senior developers to guide them in non-M&T best practices in software development, I fear many will find themselves with few new skills, and 2-3 years at M&T on a resume, thinking they can hop to a mid-level position elsewhere, but still having the skillset of entry-level. If you want opportunity in development in modern frameworks (Angular, React) and modern concepts (CI/CD, microservices, containerization), look elsewhere. We can't even get the corporate proxy to work with NPM. In fairness, there is *one* team at the bank building an Angular-based product, with a .NET Core backend. They seem to be immune to some of the issues of the bank. But even they struggle often, and don't have the need or capacity to bring on 50 new devs. Most hires will be under other branches of development. (not to be confused with git branches - we don't know what that means here) M(eet) & T(alk) prides itself on its abilities to schedule developers in meetings for 7 hours nearly every day, leaving you to either get very little done, or work into the late evening to get your expected workload completed. Everything moves as glacial speed, with committees of 12 or more meeting for 6-8 weeks to make simple product discussions. Due to the high churn rate in technology (development), most knowledge meetings for new features, vendor onboarding etc. require all developers on a time to go, instead of a representative. This protects the knowledge from being lost should one or more devs walk. Which they do. At the end of the day, its difficult to find support in leadership when senior-level still refers to "The cloud" in the same tone of voice as the alien toys from Toy Story say "The claw", middle management is the same management as pre-tech-hub - finding it difficult to accept new trends (you know, like Git source control instead of TFS), making it even slower to truly transform, and most competent tech leads and developers having already jumped ship, despite hanging on as long as they could, hoping it would get better. Check out other recent developer-job reviews for this organization, you'll see the pattern. Don't let the new "Tech Hub" fool you. The same incompetent leadership is still steering the ship into the iceberg.

- The conservative nature of the bank means that the work can be dull at times, especially if your work is project-based. - Raise / promotion system is frustrating - here's why. The salary that you start at is essentially where you're going to stay. 3% raises are the norm if you get very good reviews - a 5% raise is almost unheard of. Promotions typically do NOT yield a raise. The bank defines, for every job grade, a minimum and maximum salary. If, when you are promoted, your salary falls below the minimum salary for your new job grade, your salary will be raised to that rate. If your salary falls within the range of your new job grade, you won't receive a raise. This is completely fair until you see how wide these ranges are. A position with a median income of 50k can have a range between 35k and 70k, for example. What this essentially means is that regardless of your performance or your promotions, your salary track is essentially limited to 3% on a yearly basis. This doesn't present an issue if you come into the bank at a rate you would be happy with in the long term, but if your expectations are to start off at a low rate / position, prove your position, and then reap the rewards, the system in place isn't conducive with this. Because of the scenario, at least in my department, a higher rate of turnover of younger people who started with the bank and gained experience but continued to be paid entry-level rates was easily observable.