Pros
Benefits: food, gym, Benify, lower interest rate on mortgage. There are career opportunities if you become friends with the right people (don’t solely count on skillset being enough because it’s common that someone without prerequisites for succeeding in a role gets the job if they are friends with the right people). Some of top managers are great, but a handful are lucky to work with those people and usually there are 3-5 managers between most employees and the better leaders, leaving many stuck with middle management which is unfortunately a mess. SEB is great to work in if your main goal is to have a salary and good benefits where you are less ambitious about growing your competence. There are many transformation initiatives in the right direction - however, the deadweight of unneeded managers with internal politics and employee drama is making the necessary changes extremely slow.
Cons
The organisation is more about politics than about creating value. Most people and business areas focus on positioning for power. Unfortunately this has resulted in weak leaders and a fear driven culture where there is a silent agreement about not taking initiatives since it might threaten or offend someone in a higher rank. People stay for years, which shows the level of comfort and safety, but this has also created a community where internal allies keep eachother at the top where new knowledge, competence and development are halted. It’s a stagnant place with slow processes and a lot of talk about growth but with little willingness to stick out or take any risks. It’s a bank bubble always driving development from the inside out instead of outside in. Speaking up and being driven will be punished, because anything that causes inconvenience is seen as a threat. Knowledge is power and so naturally people do not share. Unfortunately there is also a lowkey racism - not everywhere but in most divisions - since the internal culture consists of people who don’t change much and who have little experience from outside the bank and thus live in a limited worldly perspective leading to a suspicious prejudice bias to anyone different. Tech has many with non Swedish background, but you will rarely find any in a managerial or politically important role.
