Collect your salary, switch off your brain, and abandon hope you’ll be recognized and promoted.
Pros
Above average salary; PTO; benefits; center city location proximal to mass transit; some truly funny, cynical, sardonic, and friendly colleagues who embrace gallows humor about the state of IT at the Radian Misery Machine.
Cons
The C-level, particularly the CTO Mark Wai, know the cost of everything and the value of nothing, despite that value potentially and significantly reducing costs and liabilities in terms of IT spend, reputational risk, increasing security posture, reducing compliance friction, and increasing customer retention and acquisition. Mark has no useful understanding or interest in technology, despite his title. He doesn’t understand how the drag of technical debt negatively affects Radian’s ability to onboard new customers and quickly provide them evidentiary artifacts of compliance. He’s frequently at war with the CISO, pushing back on or outright ignoring the necessity of increased security solutions, despite our space being the FIRE sector. This is emblematic of a severe cultural deficiency at Radian: the warring fiefdoms in upper management, each of whom fancy themselves Machiavelli, protecting their kingdoms at the expense of Radian’s success as a company. Schoolyard politics abound with astounding viciousness. Merit never, ever factors into promotions. If you’re chummy with the power brokers, you can probably make some progress scaling the org chart. Otherwise, prepare yourself to be happy in your position for years on end, watching senior management import their less qualified buddies, despite a deep bench of internal talent. But, hey, at least you get paid to be a spectator! The multi-year attempt to consolidate the disparate business units has failed miserably on the IT side. No one outside their own silo has any clue which other ones exist or what they do. This makes projects requiring collaboration among multiple units horribly painful, late, and costly. It also frustrates career advancement by keeping hidden opportunities for cross-silo collaboration. Lowest cost vendors are always chosen, whose work products are so terrible, Radian resources end up doing a lot of rework. The technology stacks are sclerotic. The CIO and CTO are intoxicated by the idea of Radian as a “FinTech” company, despite no ability to execute such initiatives. Pet projects abound, but they’re generally short-lived appeals to vanity. Having worked at several other large financial institutions that ARE worthy of the “FinTech” crown, Radian fails miserably at the adoption of the technology, processes, and culture necessary to meet the absolute minimum criteria of what FinTech is. The blame for all of this lies squarely at the feet of the CEO, CIO, CTO, and those riding in on their coattails. It’s easy and sounds important to call yourself FinTech — but you should also be able to deliver and impress. Given the solid talent that currently exists at Radian, it’s obvious that the executives have made a deliberate choice to go “all hat, no cattle.” Speaking of technology, tech that is now pervasive across all sorts of IT shops is still regarded as not having enough mindshare or too bleeding edge by Radian. This is tech that isn’t particularly hard to weave into Radian’s DNA and has matured over the past couple of years. Tech that makes operations easier, as well as development efforts. Tech whose presence increases morale. Tech that makes it easier for Radian to attract and retain new blood. I’ve lost track of how many new hires have fled soon after being recruited, recoiling in horror at how dull and ossified the systems and processes at Radian are. It is impossible to turn your company into a FinTech when you can’t entice resources necessary to scale those initiatives up. On the other hand, Radian’s success at fooling newly hired and extremely competent resources speaks well to HR’s talent at managing Radian’s public image, while keeping the rot out of the public eye. Alas, that’s not enough to retain people.
