16
eNPS Score
Q&A With American Express Employees
Get ideas for team-building activities and creative brainstorming sessions to help fuel collaboration and fun among your staff.
How employees describe working at American Express
I love my job at American Express. The leaders I support are empathetic and truly value their teams. The company offers great benefits, generous paid time off, and flexibility to work from away. Overall, it’s a supportive and rewarding place to wor
Valued, customer focused, responsive to feedback, always evolving.
AmEx nature and structure allow, even invite, with what is in my opinion likely more positive result than with other financial companies, my explanation to the Company of certain unusual aspects in my big case, with follow-on writing elsewhere from my desk benefitting me, AmEx and many others.
Woke/DEI implementation has destroyed American Express beyond repair. I am a forty-year member and I am done. Sad.
Great company with great people, management cares, good work life balance
What it's like to work at American Express
- American Express employees generally work 8.9 hrs a day
- Employees at American Express report the work pace is comfortably fast
- On a typical day, employees at American Express have 4+ meetings
- 77% of American Express employees look forward to interacting with their team every day
- American Express employees most often take 20-30 paid vacation and sick days each year
- 84% of American Express employees report they are happy with their work life balance
- American Express employees typically get valuable feedback on how to improve at work Once a year
- 75% of American Express employees call their work environment positive
Q&A With American Express Employees
IDX: 25 TOT: 66
What's going wrong and how can it be improved at American Express?
I feel a bit of a drag getting out of bed and spending the bulk of my time on meaningless tasks most of the day
More honest culture with rewards based around teamwork and development. Everyone is out for themselves and have no incentive to develop
Streamlined process and less beurocracy
What is the PTO policy at American Express?
One bucket of time off, you pick which holidays you want to take off.
2 weeks effective on day one. Increase every year.
What's the work from home policy like at American Express?
Very liberal but it's not common to find people who work remotely full time
Very flexible, depends on the team, but you can work completely virtually if the role allows
What unique perks and benefits does American Express provide?
I don't think this is that unique but I do like that we have onsite medical, dental and wellness coaches.
20 weeks parental leave
What's the office vibe like at American Express?
All open seating so it's hard if you're someone that is in a job where focus is necessary.
Low energy levels
Does American Express have any remote positions?
yes
Yes
How do you feel about going to work at American Express everyday?
I love my team and most of my customers. My leader is very political and makes poor choices to gain favor and is afraid to speak out.
Low energy
What's the best part of your job at American Express?
I don't have to work very hard and bluff my way through meetings because most leaders are clueless and have no idea.
Colleagues are nice
How can I improve my chances of being hired at American Express?
Know the job description well. Getting past initial screening is the hardest part.
Get referred
How difficult is it to maintain a social life while in your job at American Express?
It's pretty hard between long days and travel.
Late evening calls with Phoenix makes things difficult
How secure do you feel at your job at American Express?
There are layoffs (displacements) every month, no one is secure.
Not secure. Changes all the time for the sake of it!
How much diversity is there among employees at American Express?
In technology it's primarily Asian and Caucasian, very few women and other minorities.
Only white men/women from Band 40 and above in UK office
What's one thing you wish you'd known before joining American Express?
I wish I'd know how little attention is paid to what leadership is doing, if you have a bad or poor leader you have to move to another group. They aren't going anywhere even if there are ethics complaints.
Rate of pay rise is below industry standard
What's the vibe like in the IT dept at American Express? How many hours are you working?
This is NOT an Agile company. If you prefer waterfall projects with death marches to the finish line, you'll do fine.
Ok. 40+ a week
What's the IT team like at American Express?
Lots of politics
Trying to be agile, but very old school
How's the leadership on the IT team at American Express?
It depends on the group. The different CIOs are all very different but overall it's political and old fashioned.
Poor
How long do the interviews usually take at American Express?
The process can be 4-6 weeks
Am hour
What was the most difficult question that was asked during your interview at American Express?
How many piano tuners are there in New York?
Competency based question for which I hadn’t prepared an answer. Had to make one up on the fly.
How would you compare interviewing at American Express to other places you've interviewed?
Pretty standard
Comparable
How's the leadership on the Engineering team at American Express?
Leadership is very bad with lot of incompetent people who have no real delivery experience. They just talk good and maintain relationship. No innovative thoughts, they don't challenge the status-quo. IT delivery processes are broken which slows down development time and lot of money waste. Overall productivity is very low. You can easily see that when it comes to launching a new product, Amex time to market is slowest than it's competitors. No one from leadership tries to introspect and are willing to make changes..they just are happy with their monthly paychecks and bonus.. Issues in IT Delivery 1) Except for large program, no end to end PM or architect engaged. Hence it becomes very very difficult to deliver if there are multiple teams from different LOBs are part of the project. Teams fight and escalations doesn't has ant effect as different teams have different leadership chains. Solution: Form a PMO team who should govern and co-ordinate with all teams and escalate as necessary.
Improving for now and finally seeing intelligent and relevant questions coming from the leadership and not just time and money tracking. A transformation indeed.
What's the vibe like in the Engineering dept at American Express? How many hours are you working?
Continued from previous post.. 2) No focus on quality. There is QA engineer for each team. If there is defect caused by downstream systems, it becomes difficult to fix it. Funding and accounbility comes into picture. It takes he'll lot of time to follow n fix it. Solution: There should be a centralized QA hirrearchy and should conduct weekly defect discussion for all applications (take report from service now or QC). They can escalate if any team is not taking responsibility of fixing the defects or taking time. Some funding should be allocated to all teams to address defects (E1 to E3). Centralized QA team should not report to any LOB head, but directly to CIO. This will empower the QA teams to come up with innovative ideas how to ensure quality and improve delivery processes and code quality. Currently in Amex QA reports to each team, hence they can't drive end to end quality needs and each team fights with other and no one takes accountability.
Laid back 6 hours a day but then fire drills and 10-12 hours a day but usually only on occasion
How challenged are you at American Express?
High due to unrealistic deadlines
Challenges at American Express vary by project.
How's the work pace at American Express?
Varies
In general the pace is slow and steady, because often times the leadership make poor choices (products, people, and policies) which slows down the work pace significantly. I observed leaders making poor choices when it came to personnel (selecting leaders and assigning roles) and not building consensus or buy-in for projects. These lapses caused projects to miss milestones or continue-on removing critical milestones in an effort to make the project look like a success.
What does the leadership team at American Express need to get better at?
The executive team needs to get rid of as many middle levels of management as possible at this point. Way too much lip service going on
The leadership is focused on their own ratings and don't develop people properly.They stick lower levels in basic tasks instead of developin
What is the best part about your compensation package at American Express?
Amex has decent benefits. Feel like I pay a lot for medical but at least they subsidize a good amount of the cost.
total amount
Curious about what work's like at American Express?
Anonymously Ask American Express Employees Any Question
Should I work at American Express?
47% of American Express employees would encourage their friends to become coworkers, whereas 22% are neutral and 31% would not recommend working at American Express to their friends.
| 47% | Promoters |
|---|---|
| 22% | Passive |
| 31% | Detractors |
