Curious if anyone else is losing their cool about ongoing technology issues. I heard it’s not our laptops causing the problems but the entire Schwab network. Something “breaks” every single day. I’m restarting my laptop multiple times a day. Functionality like copy/paste will suddenly disappear and it seems like our systems straight up stopped talking to each other (like CC and SF). What is happening???
I’m posting the question here because this absolutely affects my productivity, and in this environment I don’t have the luxury of doing the bare minimum. This morning I spent 2 hours trying to connect. It doesn’t matter if I’m working from home or in my Schwab location. Can anyone share insight around what’s happening and whether it as to do with our technology teams getting gutted by layoffs? Like, did someone blow something up on their way out the door?
24 replies (most recent on top)
When I joined Schwab in 1993 we were told legacy/beta would be going away completely in the near future… yet it is still here and not going anywhere soon
EC here….I regret to inform you all…Lemiwinks…the Hamster…died. After an excruciating late night session with Walt and Rick…We tried to bring him back but he was just, just too deep. Poor thing was working OT with the TD integration…sorry but things are running slow until we find a replacement.
@1tlc+1o8O99Yd Nah, hard disagree here. Tools team are not terrible. They are actually super helpful and get you help fast.
From what I've heard, issues with team tools stems from a lot of cr-p they can't really control. Honestly, it probably boils down to the same thing another poster said. Governance and leadership b.s.
Love reading the STS truth here. It's long overdue. What a mess! Dennis, Tim, are you reading this? It's time you did.
Seriously hit the nail on the head here. I hate that leadership and MDs are always after the shiny new thing. How about we improve what we have instead?
Tools su-k? Let's improve them. Starting with infrastructure and all of the bs bureaucracy. I honestly feel like some of our red tape is all around people wanting to feel important. Why do we need so many governing boards? And what decisions do they actually make? All they do is talk in circles and look at reports. And they get paid how much for this cr-p?
Oh and the kicker? You need someone to make a critical decision on something? Good luck! You'll probably spend 1-2 hours in meetings every week trying to get a decision made for the next 5 months. Classic circle jerk where nobody in leadership wants to make a decision that might make them accountable.
Now that I've written this out, I realize that we're working under a bunch of cowards.
I have been a product manager at 3 other companies and the amount of hand-holding I have to do at Schwab is out of control. I practically have to make the wireframes myself because UX is incompetent, and my dev team cannot independently handle tickets that I would expect a brand new dev to manage at any other company. Not to mention the constant surprise councils I’m supposed to run every minor change through, and don’t even get me started on the bullsh-t waterfall project management model. It’s a nightmare. I have to talk myself out of quitting every day to hold on until a layoff payout in a few weeks. Longest few weeks of my life. Guarantee that anyone who thinks this is normal has only ever worked at Schwab.
I think a lot of y'all are more upset than I am, but it really is nuts how bad this place is at, well, everything. I've worked at more than one financial institution, including Fidelity, and this place makes them look astonishingly agile and flexible, and this TD buyout is starting to make it obvious that it's not because of banking regulations as we've been told but rather Schwab just has bad management. The monies good though, I'll just keep on keeping on. That's what they really want anyway, so I'm going to flip the docile switch and give them the mediocrity they seem to want.
As a legacy td employee, I take back everything bad I ever said about td's systems. Schwab's are so much worse, so cumbersome, and so ineffective. The transition for td folks is going to be rough. I'm confused as to why we are going backwards in technology when schwab bought for the technology
Frustrating is an understatement . The issues are nonstop and the just compound on top of each other. Something new is wrong every week.
“Plagued”… not too dramatic…
My device works just fine. Maybe it’s the user?
Atlassian Tools Teams at Schwab are terrible. Change my mind.
Systems and tech stack are built on spaghetti and bandaids. And don't forget the chewing gum that was added to get Schwab synched with TDA. Disaster waiting to happen.
@rqy+1o8O99Yd
Good PL material right here folks.
@umj+1o8O99Yd
I know you are frustrated with all the BS happening around, we all are. Some quick comments on your post if I may.
"These people have senior manager titles too"
Sr Manager SWE here. We are going through a lot of BS ourselves, I am not sure if you have visibility to that. If you hang around for a while you'll see it yourself. I hope the frustration doesn't discourage you by then.
"Hopefully the people I am referring to are affected by the layoffs." Sadly, and I didn't think I would ever say that but I hope so too. Bring it on.
"I am actually trying to fix these bugs but it seems other people have no interest and would rather just point fingers and play the blame game."
I wouldn't pay attention to what other people are doing. You saw the opportunity to contribute, which is great, and you got the gig.
"some of us are trying." We are all trying. That's the right attitude, work ethics is very important.
Don't let them grind you down. Save the money, invest in yourself, upgrade your skill set, and on to the next adventure. My best wishes to you in your journey.
I am in STS and I don’t have enough motivation myself nor I see in my team to do the work. It is sad and unfortunate we are in this state.
Regarding the client- facing sites: there are many of us in the org formerly known as Digital Services who WANT to maintain and improve existing experiences/ functionality, but the problem is with leadership decisions around project funding and general budgets. Many MDs (previously SVPs) are only interested in working on the bright shiny new exciting thing because they believe it will help advance their career. Then once that new thing is launched and the press release is out, they pat themselves on the back and abandon it. Maintenance budgets have been slashed an absolutely insane amount. We have huge parts of the site with no resources to fix basic issues, much less implement actual improvements. It's incredibly sad and I fear will only get worse with additional cuts.
I need to contact so many other teams just to get basic things done then they are all incompetant and expect me to be an expert in their area. These people have senior manager titles too. Hopefully the people I am referring to are affected by the layoffs. I am actually trying to fix these bugs but it seems other people have no interest and would rather just point fingers and play the blame game. Infrastructure here is terrible also and we get blamed for infrastructure problems. Don't want to give too much details and give away who I am but I am on the development side and some of us are trying.
I am from blue side. Lot of Schwab apps are legacy apps and there is no clear direction on the modernization effort. It is all over the place. Now by onboarding TDA data and apps, it will get more cumbersome. There are too many technology directors (Individual contribution) who do not pass clear road map to development teams who do the ground work. Standards are not followed and paperwork is too much to handle. Apps are bound to fail eventually and unmanageable.
No one seems to be working anymore we are all waiting on the layoff results. Call the help desk if you are having issues. If you have zscaler installed stop using svo. Only use svo if the help desk tells you to zscaler should auto connect for you already.
The issues ironically are related to trust. The laptops are so locked down to prevent employees from doing anything the company does not want. This in turns causes all kinds of computer issues.
Been here several years and it’s genuinely laughable. I often have to call NSD 4-5 times before an issue is resolved. I’m on the phones so most of the time I’m fine with it, they are taking me away from my job and that’s on them.
But when you’re actually trying to do something for a client, that is where it is enraging. Our systems for getting things done FOR CLIENTS are FILLED with glitches. Our fixed income system is the worst, but instead of fixing an issue that would likely solve 1000s of trade errors and untold money for the firm, they just say it’s your fault when an obvious problem ends up causing problems. Salesforce is a joke. Client central belongs in the early 90s and often straight up doesn’t work. All of these issues cause inter-department tension bordering on rage as people take out their anger on other departments when every department is kept together with twine and glue.
I find it really funny that a public company has technology that belongs in Soviet Russia. The website looks pretty but is not intuitive nor functional. Clients are irate with ridiculous changes that LOSE functionality and usually with very good reason (like market value not syncing up or share prices and yields being different.) How many times do I have to sit and agree with a client that yeah, our systems su-k. I’m not going to lie and tell them they’re seeing something incorrectly, it truly is that are systems SU-K.
The people migrating from TD are in for a rude awakening. As they both fire people and lose talent, they’ll be left with the kind who are unwilling to take the time to navigate our fragile and broken systems to get the clients what they need, and I foresee losing a ton of clients as it become apparent the bones that hold this company up are 80s era software filled with bugs and that without very careful handholding and a patient and detail oriented person on the other end, any one thing a client is calling in to do has a 50/50 chance of going haywire.
What the he-l is with technology at Schwab! If I had known how bad it was when I applied, that would have been a deal-breaker. I have been in the tech industry for over ten years, and the only time I recall having to contact IT before Schwab was when I spilled coffee on my laptop. It’s insanely bad here. It’s validating to hear it’s not just me though.
They gave me a laptop months ago and I’ve had nothing but issues with it from the start. Had to call the service desk like 10 -15 times already (those poor souls). Laptop also gets locked even though I’m logging in regularly.
My solution: I stopped using it lol. My personal computer works way better and I don’t spend 25% of my day dealing with tech issues. They’ve chastised me for not using it, but id rather actually do my job than having to call NSD every other day. I realize this may not a viable solution for everyone, but it works for me