senior software engineer

examiner

product owner

law enforcement officer

analyst

Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis

In February 2023 during the annual Town Hall, the Bank's First VP made ominous remarks about needing to restore and preserve workplace culture, indicating that hybrid work changes were on the way. Shortly after that in early March, the previous hybrid arrangement that required many employees to work onsite only 4 days per month was reduced. A policy was put into effect requiring most people to work onsite at least twice per week.

Then, at the beginning of April, the CEO and First VP announced a "Work From Anywhere" policy granting a measly 50 days to work offsite per calendar year. The rationale these two provided during a Bank-wide video call was completely unsatisfying, and both of them spoke to and about employees like we're hapless children who can't be trusted, can't manage our time, and are making them look bad. They made it clear they don't respect us and are A-OK with harming the people who work for them.

Advice to the senior leadership:

Undo the Work From Anywhere policy. You could restore some of this lost trust and regain some respect from the people you rely on to make this workplace what it is. You can *choose* to retain people and entice others to consider this Bank as a forward-thinking, empathetic, and modern employer. Show the leaders who report to you that you respect them and trust their competence. Let us have the autonomy and dignity we deserve to manage our time, in work and in our lives.

Top management is garbage and full of ideologs.  People just fall in line with the loudest, most influential person in the room.  Very few people have a spine to speak up.  The people who do are quickly squashed. 
 Dissent is strongly discouraged.  Middle managers are hit and miss but they have almost no autonomy.  When tough decisions are made, everyone turns into robots in their responses.  

They push the "diversity is our strength" message hard.  They do not mean it.  They strive to make sure you skin color matters most... just tow the line or else.  Thought diversity is frowned upon.

Some areas promote based solely on how long you have been in that area.  This takes away any sense of accomplishment watching your lazy incompetent coworker get promoted to your level simple because they have skated through for two years in their current role.

The bank does a good job at remaining near the top of the benefits and pay structure compared to other local companies. They have also recently revised their benefits package related to work / life balance options that does help a bit, but not quite in line with other local companies here.

The problem you may have in many groups is the environment for each work is isolated and many times you will not have much interaction with your peers. There is a lot of red tape on the projects and a lot of requirements to use older more inefficient technologies. Many of the project teams take months or even years for releases, causing many inefficiencies in the process.

I've had a fantastic experience since day one. After coming from a micromanaged and toxic environment, this has truly been a breath of fresh air. The culture is supportive, with a focus on lifelong learning. There are countless opportunities to explore different departments, develop new skills and take advantage of the tuition reimbursement. The kindness and collaboration from colleagues across the Bank have stood out to me, making it easy to see why so many people choose to stay for the long term. I'm excited to continue my journey here. 

The culture is do what I say not what I do. They don’t follow through with promises and overwhelmed the employees with more work than they can achieve. Bonuses and salary increases only go to VPs that are patting the executive VPs On the back. The Fed does not recognize failure in anyway and if you are not working at high levels 100% of the time you will not grow in this company. 

While working at the Federal Reserve Bank I have had the opportunity to gain more knowledge regarding the banking system. I've experienced several different aspects of the banking system including: examination compliance, CRA, and fair lending, as well as the application process for potential state member banks.

Where do I start? My immediate team and manager are amazing and supportive. But we have been on the outside. However, the greater organization is risk averse, very stuck in their ways, siloed, and have only worked in their own Fed bubble. Which means they don’t interact with anyone else in the world work-wise. There is favoritism and hostility at the higher levels and some really big (unsubstantiated) egos.  Any sort of positive change takes forever.  Proper tools and technology can be quite challenging and processes are archaic at best. Stay away. 

Weak upper management demonstrates no leadership.  They are more about politics and getting promoted than running a quality operation.

Recently promoted someone to VP despite that person heading a series of failed projects and almost having 1 team mutiny.

Ancient technology, Says they are "agile" but just use agile terms for a waterfall process.

Trying to get to the cloud but have totally botched thier cloud implementation.

Good stable company that rarely has job cuts.  Pay was good and benefits and perks were excellent, such as pension plans, savings plans in addition to the 401k, help with student loan payments, Employee Resource Groups, education reimbursement, pet insurance, on-site cleaners drop off and pick-up, onsite car wash, oil change and detail, onsite massage therapy, cafeteria, and medical insurance for life after 10 years of employment.

The rank and file junior managers do not manage -utter chaos when compelled to do their jobs. People are not accountable and rarely show up for their workweek and abuse the work from anywhere policy. Pay is substandard. Merit raises are not based on merit and the bonus was borderline insulting.. Gossip is supreme and people are genuinely fearful of upper management. Disappointed that I chose to work here, but will not be staying 

Top Job Titles	Average Salary
Senior software engineer 1 salary reported	$155,000 per year
Examiner 7 salaries reported	$127,057 per year
Product owner 1 salary reported	$107,700 per year
Law enforcement officer 3 salaries reported	$60,533 per year
Analyst 4 salaries reported	$34.07 per hour

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