Two Sigma Reviews

Pros

Work life balance is still ok, though getting worse.

Cons

Rife with politics, culture now completely taken over by ex Goldman Sachs employees. Once this place had the best benefits, but one by one they've been removed as "cost-cutting measures." Reorgs happen all the time, and a lot of the best talent is slowly leaving.

Advice to Management

Listen more to engineers. Try to get things stable before disrupting flows. Bring back our benefits. It'll be harder and harder to keep talent while we keep losing to every other tech company in benefits.

Pros

Feels like a tech company

Cons

Too laid back in terms of culture

Pros

Solid pay for the industry. Some other competitors pay more but usually at the cost of WLB, and TS pays well into the 'diminishing returns' range anyways. Extremely flexible hours, along with limited working from home or remote. Great work life balance. Will reimburse conferences, tuition, textbooks, and has great internal trainings and seminars. Goes hand-in-hand with flexible hours. On-site snacks including...

Cons

Politics and bureaucracy are the name of the game. Sucking up, checking off checkboxes for the sake of it, and potemkin villages are where most effort goes. "Not-my-problem" politics lead to internal issues festering way longer than they should because managers flee from responsibility and employee initiative isn't taken seriously. Micromanagement abound, little independence of employees and a lot of talent is squandered...

Advice to Management

Listen to people with boots on the ground, and give them actual independence. Some of your businesses could be so much more if management just listened to the people who actually knew what they were doing. All the ingredients are there. Lay off the politics and bureaucracy, reward financial and engineering success instead of checkboxes checked off, or as was suggested at a recent presentation, "number of jiras closed"....

Pros

Modernizing of technology stack There are some still really great managers who do want you to succeed Flexibility with choosing projects sometimes, flexible hours Gym

Cons

As others have mentioned, bureaucracy and red-tape in addition to heavy dosing of politics Blatant nepotism, especially within the network of former Goldman Sachs employees Engineering middle management emphasizes and rewards the wrong set of behaviors Most senior/high-level positions (and corresponding SVP titles) are given to new hires rather than loyal, long-time employees

Advice to Management

Reward loyalty and take care of your committed employees

Pros

good benefits and great team

Cons

all things are very good

Pros

Pay is good/decent, benefits are amazing. Perks are really good (gym, free food, all the snacks in the kitchen, etc). Lots of smart people walking around that are mostly humble and will answer your questions. Complex environment but you can and probably will learn a lot in a relatively short amount of time.

Cons

The usual corporate bureaucracy and politics. As Two Sigma grows into a medium-sized entity, there are some growing pains. Limited upward mobility depending on your management chain (they essentially shut down a partnering project with a chance for me to transfer to that team). Depending on your engineering area, work/life balance can be bad. Mixed use of proprietary technology and open-source. The proprietary stuff...

Advice to Management

Lay off the politics to allow your engineers to get the work done and advance in the company. Treating them with respect and taking their input into consideration when making big changes for the team would be much appreciated.

Pros

Excellent benefits and interesting projects

Cons

No problems here so far

Pros

None that I can think of. This place is plain hell.

Cons

There are so much racism and finance-bro-esque bullying at play that makes it so hard to work at. Unless you are white or Indian, don't go to this place.

Advice to Management

Be nice