A developer's nightmare - Software Engineer Charles Schwab Employee Review

1.0
5 Feb 2020
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Pretty solid benefits, which would be especially generous to someone starting out in an entry level job (less so when you're already at this salary level.)

Cons

Shockingly non-existent onboarding or documentation. Every thing you attempt to do present some new challenge you can't overcome without esoteric knowledge that only one person that's now in another department knows. And no domain knowledge either, so you'll have no idea what the work you're accomplishing actually does or is meant to do. Some of these knowledge transfer meetings were also grueling, 3+ hour endeavors, where the employees who were teaching you their platforms would just work silently as the trainees watched. Recovering from some really bad practices, such "include precompiled binaries of the libraries we use" instead of "reference our internal package server." Which made my job of porting our code an absolute nightmare. Cryptic and unflexible. When I was hired they did not tell me the location of the office (or any details at all, I had to reach out to find out when my first day was,) and I assumed it was at their campus. It was a branch building, where my commute was over 2 hours long each way (instead of the 7 minutes to their campus.) I asked and they explained that work from home was only available for medical reasons. The first pay period I was dinged for having an inconsistent schedule, due to the effect of traffic on our bus routes. The second pay period I was dinged for staying in the office too long, due our commuter bus schedule running 15 minutes later than the end of the day. I was told I could take flex time and leave earlier on Friday to prevent from accruing overtime. The third pay period I was dinged for not working enough hours on Friday, and was told they wouldn't pay me for the hour I owed (which was fine, as I was also dinged for working overtime on Monday through Friday, for which I was paid extra.) I gave up after that. For security reason the office internet is highly locked down, which make absolute sense. But there's also no guest network and no cell phone reception in their offices, which means you will slowly go insane at the lack of human communication. I spent over 3 hours in a meeting where the culture committee derived the rules to Pictionary, for a game that lasted us 20 minutes. This was not an ironic exercise.

Explore other reviews about Charles Schwab

5.0
7 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Lots of learning opportunities with opportunities for growth.

Cons

Limited to RM role for promotion, where you get stuck in that role.

3.0
29 Jun 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business outlook

Pros

Great clients, decent benefits, acceptable pay, excellent training for when you move on.

Cons

Pay below competitors, constant inbound calls, stringent metrics that tighten annually, middle-of-the-road work-life balance. Schwab used to have great culture, but it becomes more "corporate" every year and with every new CEO. The "Executive Council" is wildly out of touch with frontline employees and needs to stop passing the buck of employee dissatisfaction into the managers.

See reviews by: Helpful|Rating|Date|All