senior software engineer

leasing specialist

software engineer

credit analyst

senior credit specialist

CoBank

CoBank is nice and exciting when you are new and before you get thrown into the thick of things. Once you are up and running with your orientation you learn just how understaffed every single department is at the work. The company has a shadowing portion for advancement to other departments and literally every group I spoke with is/was understaffed. CoBank runs a lean ship despite boasting record profits and how well they are doing. God forbid associates have some breathing room if it means saving a couple of bucks from hiring a new person or three.

 CoBank's reluctance to hire more bodies seems to apply only to the common worker doing the majority of the work. When my department's manager was promoted to a different position in the company they were replaced with TWO people, while also bemoaning the lack of funds in the budget to hire extra people to actually help with the heavy workflow. One of the people who replaced this old manager was actually promoted (which is good), but their role was never backfilled meaning the team was actually down more workers as a result.

 Speaking of being new, the onboarding is terrible. The general company overview is comprehensive, however individual departments typically have NO formal training and everyone is set up and trained piecemeal. I've been here several years and still have not gotten set up for some logins that others in my job have. After a while you stop asking because what's the point?

 Over the pandemic managements was able to pivot to WFM. While the CEO acknowledged that they can't walk back on that without losing talent, managements is still clearly trying to get people back into their large and expensive office space. They have been pushing "Connection Days" that no one actually ever seems excited for, but management swears up and down associates are clamoring for. Department managers "strongly encourage" their teams to come in to make the initiative look more successful than it is.

 Due to individual deals and different standards for different people, CoBank allows some associates to work fully remote, no questions asked, while allowing their co-workers with the same job and responsibilities to be called into office at managements discretion. This is just poor leadership to make deals with other employees you are unwilling or unable to make with everyone, and frankly, sows discourse amongst teams when certain people get special treatment. 

 Managements is slow to make changes. Managers will be in meetings about meetings, and I don't think I have ever seen an initiative launch date that wasn't pushed back several times. A lot of the software is clunky and feels incredibly outdated. It's such a waste of time and resources where leadership could be focusing on their teams and addressing actual issues but instead they need to have a meeting on something mundane. 

 While people are generally nice at the company, there is a toxic culture of different departments playing hot potato with who does what work. Sometimes it feels like sorting out who processes what takes more time and effort than actually doing the work.

 A great perk of CoBank is the yearly bonus paid out to associates. However, even that is messy. The bank made record profits in 2022, however, the multiplier given on our 2023 bonuses was lower than in years past because of associates not meeting some obscure goal(s). Again, the ASSOCIATES made the bank break a record year and they don't even get rewarded for it. Who are these metrics for and what do they actually accomplish besides giving managements an excuses to stiff workers? This is a genuine question. As the average worker I have no ideal what metric/goals we didn't hit to cause our bonuses to be cut. How do we work towards something we are not aware of?

To be clear violence is not physical;   
"Violence: The intentional use of physical force or power, threatened or actual, against oneself, another person, or against a group or community, that either results in or has a high likelihood of resulting in injury, death, psychological harm, maldevelopment, or deprivation."  

During my time at CoBank my Sr. Manager was violent, abusive and used retaliatory methods and behavior when I tried to seek help. Multiple attempts to take care of myself, home and family resulted in retaliation and abusive behavior which made it extremely difficult to ensure the safety and wellbeing of my family. Because of this I decided to leave CoBank as quickly as possible regardless of employment status.   

Bullying and intimidation from my Sr. Manager were part of a daily routine. All my stress from work was due to this behavior and not the work itself. I was part of a small team and within a few short months I was the third person to leave. That, in itself, should be a cause for concern.  

My Sr. Manager attacked my disability and demanded I do something about it. I found this shocking to think a leader would consider they were above the authority of the ADA. My mistake was trying to resolve it within the team and being a "Team Player". When I addressed this my Sr Manager lied about it. The correct course of action would have been to contact HR and address this situation with an ADA representative. 

At one point when I reached out for help, I was told it was my fault. This had the same effect as if someone being attacked was told it was their fault because of the way they dressed or because they acted in a provocative manner. It was a dreadful experience knowing this type of behavior was not going to be addressed and that it was going to be reinforced.  

Not all teams or leadership was like this. There are some outstanding leaders, high performance teams, and associates at CoBank that are beyond reproach and exhibited the highest level of professionalism. However, if you are considering employment at CoBank you should know and understand that this type of toxic environment and behavior at the leadership level exists, and with impunity.  

Good luck. 

Management-level is quite political and perception-driven, but regular employees are friendly and laid-back and generally don't care about such things. It's like two different worlds: management and everyone else. 

Dress code is a little on the stuffy side relative to every other company I've worked for: everybody must wear a nice tucked-in collared shirt and slacks.

Everybody would agree that there are too many meetings and we leave them feeling as if nothing really got done--which comes from the fact that there are way too many managers and management-tiers. In IT alone there are a smattering of different VPs, beneath which are at least 10 directors, each with their own managers and senior managers below them, below whom are the rest of us. This slows things down as every little proposal, grievance, or task needs to travel around to all the right players, and the people in the trenches are too far removed from the people making decisions. With so many disparate teams, it is also very hard to keep up with exactly who does what--and even company veterans of 10+ years have this issue.

That being said, the work-life balance is terrific. They also have an indoor cafeteria with slightly overpriced, but decent, food. They also compensate significantly above industry average and tout good benefits, which appears to be an attempt to attract new talent and get it to stay. They allow people to work from home sometimes. They also have an indoor gym.

Recent management changes in IT seem to point in the direction of much-needed organizational transformation, addressing the need to bring the bank out of 2008. I look forward to seeing how this goes; I'm cautiously optimistic.

Pros:
 Compensation is acceptable. Benefits are decent. There are some smart, well-intentioned people trying to do good work. Unfortunately, they’re not the ones making decisions.
Cons:
 Leadership in the Technology division is one of the most dysfunctional I have ever experienced. Decisions are frequently made behind closed doors, often without input from the people most affected. When communication does happen, it’s usually after the fact, filled with vague justifications and a heavy dose of spin.
There’s a persistent culture of defensiveness and control. Disagreeing with leadership, even respectfully, is treated as disloyalty. And disloyalty is punished. If you question the wrong person, you might as well ensure your resume is current. Promotions and visibility go to those who keep quiet and stay in line. It’s a textbook case of optics over substance. The only thing that matters here is that you are loyal to the right people and your work appears to generate ‘business value’.
You’ll hear a lot about values, culture, and psychological safety. You’ll see very little of it in practice. Instead, you’ll get shifting priorities, unexplained layoffs, and work that serves more as vanity projects than strategic direction. Morale is low, tensions are high, and everyone pretends it’s fine.
Advice to Management:
 Stop pretending this is a leadership issue that can be solved with one more training or a new slogan. The problem isn’t the training, it’s the people and their actions. Listen, actually listen, to the people doing the work. Then ask yourselves if you’d tolerate this environment from the outside looking in. If the answer is no, fix it.

I’m going to keep this simple. This is not a good place to work. They are not looking to advance your career in any way despite what they preach. This is a greedy company that does not  believe in its associates. For younger people who are just joining the work force, do not join this company as you will immediately regret the decision. The training they provide is awful, yet management brags about its effectiveness. Management is non existent, in fact,  if you had little to no training in management and leadership you would be a better leader than most at this bank. CoBank is full of people that only want to stunt your growth as an individual and a professional. The CEO preaches about great reviews from the board of directors/shareholders, and with his pay I’d be happy even if this company tanks. The associates that make this company are dragged through the mud and constantly blamed for everything that goes wrong. Associates are not rewarded for their hard work. If anyone is considering working at CoBank, ask yourself what is your happiness worth? I was told I would be getting overtime to compensate for the lack of pay, and yet 3 months later I was told there was no more overtime for associates. Ultimately this company has failed on all its promises and I would hope anyone that reads this really takes into account that CoBank does not want what’s best for its associates! Do not work for CoBank! 

CoBank is a great place to work because of great benefits and work/life balance. I recommend taking the interview seriously and asking a lot of questions to truly understand what kind of manager you will be working with. It can be hard to find true leaders who are willing to work with you professionally and respectfully. 

There are a few managers and supervisors who deserve respect and loyalty from their team because they trust their team and help them be competent, and you can tell from the number of years they stick with the same leader. Unlike some managers who have trust issues, micromanage, and make the job harder than it is. Managers can question trust and respect, but it goes both ways. 

Like many other reviews I agreed with negative behavior and toxic work environment. It is very stressful to work with a manager who is not willing to work together to solve problems but focuses more on blaming others in disrespectful and unprofessional ways. Providing average pay and great benefits does not mean it is okay to treat people poorly however you like. 

“Doing the right thing” does not stop at providing pay, good benefits, work/life balance, and fun activities. It becomes meaningless once trust and respect is gone. I really believe there are good leaders within the organization, but some bad apples just ruin the batch.


While CoBank offers CoBank university to learn job principles, it can be difficult for some new employees to start depending upon department. I’m some cases no specific training is provided for programs, policies, or procedures used daily for the position. You can be given a desk and a computer then told to go, if you are not a self starter this can be difficult.

Managers are hit and miss and lately with turn over are fairly fresh. Many managers are good at their specialty but not great at managing/people skills. HR business managers are unaware of core job duties / day to day tasks. HR will 100% back managers and sometimes to a fault. The bank fosters a culture that makes it difficult for new employees to grow and become successful. It’s difficult to watch some of the decisions being made within CoBank.

As mentioned in other reviews, CoBank is slow in decision making and changes can take a while to make. I believe a lot of great managers and institutional knowledge was lost in the last several years. CoBank needs to shift pay, policy, and training methods to successfully rebuild and create a culture that inspires employee success. 

Outside of these issues, the facility is nice, and hybrid/flex positions are offered for most positions. Benefits are on par or exceed industry counterparts. 

I worked a year-long contract position here. Your experience will largely depend upon your particular manager. I had two different managers, one of which was great, and one that was pretty poor - enough to be derided by most of their staff, and causing several staff departures. It's a pretty large organization, so there was quite a bit of segregation of duties and bureaucracy, which means projects are completed at a glacial pace. I was frequently waiting for the Identity Management team to respond to requests, and usually had to escalate that problem to my manager to apply pressure. There was also a noticeable degree of office politics - perhaps unavoidable in an organization of their size. They do appear to generally take good care of their employees, with good benefits and frequent, fun activities. Contractors, however, do not get to participate in any of this. It was not uncommon for me to find the entire floor nearly empty, without any warning, only to find out that everyone was at a special function, which kind of makes you feel like the unwanted step-child. I was offered a contract extension, but declined due to the negatives. 

At desk and ready to work by 7:00 most days (official start time 7:30)
Working from Consultants documents, prepare Cash Management documents for services that the customer had signed up for. 
After review by Consultant, send to customer according to desired delivery method (i.e.: overnight or regular mail).
Learned which documents to select for particular services.
Management was easy to work with and respected their staff. 
Co-workers were a variety of personalities with differing desires in how/what they wanted in their customer packets
Hardest part of the job was ensuring that the latest iteration of documents were being sent to customers
I enjoyed working with almost all the members of the team

I started with CoBank as a temp and was hired on as Conference Coordinator when the current Coordinator quit. The position enabled me to travel to various parts of  the country to select hotels at which to hold customer meetings as well an an annual trip to Washington, DC which is my favorite tourist location. I was rather autonomous in the position which was  gratifying.  I left when everyone over 55 was offered a package and it was obvious that the future was for the young.

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