What I wish was different
I wish I could have been on a different team, or at least had some flexibility as to what I was doing during my time at M&T Bank. I wasn't too fond of the project we did and many times I felt like I was not maximizing productivity for the team because I wasn't interested in things that they found exciting, and often times when I sought help from team members there wasn't much insightful feedback, and expectations for my progression as the summer moved on was extremely unrealistic. Also, the overall mood of the people working there full time was bland. People were clearly not enthusiastic about working at M&T, aside from Project Managers, and upper level employees like the new CIO, and department overseers. This to me overall brought the mood down, and sometimes made me dread going to work. The technology used every day was clearly due for an overhaul (not using Agile as your development methodology, swearing by closed license software as the holy grail of security and development, being admin locked from everything including IDE's, extensions, and other software that can greatly improve productivity, all PC's still running Windows 7 in 2018, still using monolith services as your main Design Pattern for Infrastructure when growing businesses in the industry are switching over to microservices like Kubernetes, also Microsoft Outlook is outdated, etc.) I also wish I could've gotten paid more, but it's hard to negotiate pay when you only have a couple of offers, and you're a freshman looking for your first internship. I strictly remember talking to a lead in the Technology department halfway through the summer about reasons they struggled with acquiring new talent. When one of the reasons for this was revealed to be due to lack of pay for new undergraduates looking for full time work, and asking what M&T pays new employees now, the reply I was given was "I'm not going to tell you, I want you to return here" although all of this data is available on websites like Glassdoor, hearing it from someone who is currently working there immediately made me question any considerations I had about coming back to work at M&T for both full time and seasonal work (Not to say that I wouldn't return, but it was a big eye opener) When you're that open about how much you don't pay Software Engineers, and other people in Technology, although it's appreciated, it reflects a lack of understanding reality in the city, and more specifically the world we live in which is dominated by Software. I can name 5 companies off the top of my head right now paying new grad Software Engineers upwards of $100k starting salary in the City of Buffalo, and the fact that M&T Bank can't match that is weird to think about since they've been one of the most successful banks in the United States. Another thing I disliked was the cubicles, they made me feel isolated from my team and less involved with what was actually going on within the project. Now that I currently work in an open office setting I can fully understand why I felt this way during my time at M&T.
