intern

product owner

examiner

research associate

analyst

Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Day-to-day ... mind-numbingly unrewarding. 

The opportunity to apply your experience, skillset, strengths, and continuous learning is minimal to non-existent. Colleagues are motivated by job security, so they act only on familiarity. Everyone is coasting along, eyes on getting the golden retirement benefits. Colleagues, partners, and management with dated perspectives ignore any other perspective, which reinforce hierarchy and silos. This makes collaboration impossible. You try to educate and influence, but leadership only cares about operations, speed, and delivery. This eliminates any opportunity to influence, challenge thinking, and try anything new. The only things that influences employees are who is above them with the power to give reviews, give bonuses, give raises, and give promotions. 

Middle management ... useless, self-serving.

They lack prioritization and coaching-up skills leaving you sprialing on multiple disconnected projects based on short-term thinking. Middle management is so focused on getting praise and promotions from above, they treat you and your skills as pawns. You depressingly watch people with zero experience in your field get promoted because they have the ear of leadership and manipulate their way up the ladder. Then you're stuck under their poor vision and strategy, that is if they understand that is their role. Most give you solutions to execute and tactics to implement.

Leadership ... puts on a good show of saying one thing and doing the complete opposite in reality.

You beg leadership to actually listen to problems, but they deflect claiming we have the ability and power to solve on our own at our levels. Then they turn around, tell you your perspective is wrong, dictate direction, and hint you should fear them.

Culture ... Bureacratic, disconnected, hierarchy, and power-positioning.

Listening is a problem everywhere in the organization. There is no inclusiveness, no open discussion, no acknowledgment of perspectives, no dialogue, no desire to dig deeper into whys. From colleagues to management to leadership, they all approach everything with a predetermined "best idea" which is their idea dreamed up in isolation. They never ask for other ideas. They never state a problem. They tell you the solution and sell it, push it, force it, and make you convince them that their idea is not the best idea. Of course, it's a losing game. Why would they admit they don't have briliant ideas? They need that promotion or they need to keep their perception of power.

Fed employees forcefully clammer for promotions and HR wants to show the organization values advancement opportunities, so you're stuck with dated insular thinking that produces no actual real results.

People hire buddies from outside and promote buddies from inside. "Surrounding yourself with people who say 'yes,'" is cancerous at The Fed. If promotions don't go to buddies, it goes to the loudest complaining employee, the self-centered status seeker, or the one who threatens to leave. You can imagine the culture, environment, and satisfaction those choices produce. Not good.

Important to note that depending on department, you'll land in one of two cultrues. Either a posturing old-boys-club culture that even in leadership positions complains about being continually minimized in society ("new minority" and "we're now being disreminated" were terms heard more than once during employment at The Fed) or a smash-the-patriarchy culture that over-analizes any perceived slight received or benefit someone else received. Navigating this culture is debilitating and deflating. 

Collaboration and inclusiveness is next to impossible. Everyone has a chip on their shoulder.

You have two choices working at The Fed. First choice, give up on your profession, stop having pride in your work, stop caring about keeping current with industry, and just coast paycheck-to-paycheck until you hit retirement (just like everyone else at work) or; Second choice, leave The Fed entirely. Take any other approach and be constantly squashed and eventually left disaffected.

For some people, this environment and culture may be fine. If you want to punch in, punch out, caring only about steady pay, great benefits, and retirement, a junior to senior Fed job is for you. If you're a natural at intragiating, controlling, and gaslighting, you'll do great in Fed ladder climbing jobs. 

As an organization, the Fed has many advantages including great benefits, generous PTO, and an increasingly open and collaborative culture. For the most part, employees are able to maintain a solid work/life balance.  

Aside from that, pay is significantly lower than other companies in the area, but one could argue that the benefits package provided offsets that.  Progress up the ladder is slow for most people, with small incremental yearly raises and not much movement between departments.  That isn't necessarily a bad thing if you enjoy your work, but is something to consider if you're looking to work for a dynamic organization.

Additionally, the quality of your experience there depends largely on the structure of your team and your relationship with your manager.  Opportunities for advancement or lateral movement within the organization tend to be limited, so if your manager is not a good fit, that will strongly impact your experience.  

I personally had a tough manager who was a valuable contributor to the bank, but on a personal level was very difficult and inconsistent about expectations, which made my day-to-day more stressful and unpleasant than it needed to be. I didn't feel like my performance was assessed accurately, or that I had any opportunities to remediate the situation through HR or other channels.  In the end, they seem to care more about the results achieved more than the treatment or wellbeing of their employees, which is understandable, but unfortunate for those dealing with unreasonable bosses.

My impression of the organization as a whole was positive, but I can't say the same about my individual experience on my team. I've spoken with other employees who had similar experiences, which is unfortunate because I think many high potential contributors end up slipping through the cracks or leaving, but also with many others who have had great experiences and stay for their entire career.  I wouldn't discourage people from working here, but I would urge them to get a pulse for their team dynamic and manager.

I worked at the FRB Richmond for several years.  They claim to be non-partisan, but their management and policies all seem to be left-wing.  Management encourages backbiting and for employees to get offended like a 'safe space' at a liberal university.

The pace of work is excruciatingly slow.  Problems or projects that at other companies would take me days or weeks to solve/finish, take months and years to complete at the FRB.  It was hard to think and work that slowly.  Productivity is not a priority.

Management pretends to be your friend and interested about you as a person.  My annual evaluations were good until I had major heart surgery and struggled afterword getting over the traumatic experience.  All I got from management and HR was a unrelenting flow of negativity (maybe I have the wrong skin tone or gender for them to care).  The indifference about my situation was shocking.  I quit and am happy I do not have to go there or see those managers ever again.

 

I was with the same company for over 13 years. I struggled with being over utilized, under appreciated, and under compensated with a terrible work-life balance. I kept telling myself that things will change next year and it never did. Since joining the Federal Reserve bank of Richmond, I now know what I have been missing out on. The culture, management, and support in growing my career have been incredible in just a short time. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The ability to use ample PTO with decent working conditions.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Dealing with policy and procedure directions from poor leadership in the Charlotte office.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Poor, due to a unit trying to be something it is not. Law enforcement Unit is nothing but corporate security.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Smooth sailing as long as certain managers were not involved.

What is the best part of working at the company?
No micromanaging, independent critical thinking is encouraged. Benefits package and PTO is excellent.  The job feels important, the employee skill set is top notch.

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Keeping the IT systems up to meet SLAs.

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Very professional and inclusive.

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Supporting the treasury, the CBAFs and providing and changing the necessary IT environments to meet the customers needs.

What is the best part of working at the company?
Full time remote work and superb benefits

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Because of the great bene’s you have many people with many years.  That is good and bad.  At times not open to new ideas. ‘We’ve always done it this way”

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Outstanding.  Being ft remote can be tough at times

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
There is no typical day. But that may vary depending on exact role
You have.

I have worked at the Federal Reserve for quite some time now and have continuously been sadly reminded of a few things. First, career growth and development opportunities have proven to be much easier and attainable for white men vs their diverse counterparts. The one thing that makes the Fed ‘A best place to work’, is the remote option and flexibility that affords staff and pension plan. Otherwise, do not even try to work at the Fed. It’s very political and development and crater growth are both extremely hard. 

What is the best part of working at the company?
The people here are amazing!  Extremely dedicated and talented group. 

What is the most stressful part about working at the company?
Layoffs, lack of opportunities for advancement. 

What is the work environment and culture like at the company?
Most of the time it’s pretty positive.  However has changed… currently morale is low. 

What is a typical day like for you at the company?
Meetings, communications, same as most companies.

Pros: good pay for area, great job security, $15k/year for related masters degrees, inclusive, open communication with employees

Cons: red tape, slow, difficult to move up tiers (IE: from analyst/engineer to architect/advisor) but promotions within same role are every 2-4 years.  At a place this big you will be limited to a small role rather than touching a lot of things (in IT at least)

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Intern 6 salaries reported	$21.27 per hour
Product owner 1 salary reported	$138,500 per year
Examiner 6 salaries reported	$113,975 per year
Research associate 3 salaries reported	$67,000 per year
Analyst 4 salaries reported	$81,300 per year

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