Silicon Valley Bank reviews

4.0

75% would recommend to a friend

(1,426 total reviews)
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Marc Cadieux

82% approve of CEO

53% positive business outlook

Silicon Valley Bank has an employee rating of 4.0 out of 5 stars, based on 1,426 company reviews on Glassdoor which indicates that most employees have a good working experience there. The Silicon Valley Bank employee rating is in line with the average (within 1 standard deviation) for employers within the Financial Services industry (3.7 stars).

Reviews by job title

1K reviews
3.0
Apr 21, 2019
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

- Platform to quickly built up connections in the industry if you join the right team within SVB - Lots of dinners and events to join if you are market facing - Unlimited vacation policy - Most people are nice within the org

Cons

- SVB intentionally underpays and tries to maintain a lean structure. However, this is a bank that requires lots of human and capital investments into operations. No one wants to work for you if there isn't a fair reward/output ratio across functions. - Extremely political. As folks like Mike D rises up in the org, people he trusts get promoted faster. Mostly nothing to do with talent but everything to do if their thought process aligns with his. And similar goes to other members within the steering committee. Not a bright future for the bank when you keep doing story telling on diversity while your own leadership table has zero diversity. Having 2-3 women at the table has nothing to do with diversity. You need diversity on career background, race, age, and geography. - SVB went through at least 6 annual re-orgs in the last few years with the hope to break things down. The results are horrible. One team that really needs to be re-org'd is HR but nothing happened to them. Same drills every day. And never spent time/money to actually provide onboarding and career training when half of the company has been there for less than 3 years. - Less than 20% of SVB staff is actually tech-savvy. Most people have no clue and no interest in what SVB's clients actually do. Most people within SVB can't even actually tell what are some of the main subsidiaries of the financial group and don't even know how the organization makes its money.

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Silicon Valley Bank Response
7y
Response from Chris Edmonds-Water, CHRO Thanks for taking the time to share your feedback on SVB, both positive and constructive. I thought it both helpful and important to respond to a few comments made in your review. We are indeed a company that leads with our values, and I believe that translates into SVB being a great place to work. We take care to benchmark salaries at the market median. Due to outperformance by employees and the company, we have funded our bonus pool at a multiple in recent years, resulting in pay closer to the third quartile for most employees. No doubt SVBers work hard, but our market data shows they are paid competitively. In terms of our inclusion and diversity efforts, it is indeed a continuous process. Based on traditional metrics of diversity (gender, ethnicity, LGBTQ) we have made progress. But as you noted, diversity is more than being uniquely about one’s background; rather it’s also about having a different world view that helps make for even better business outcomes, and feeling included in such a way that you’re comfortable sharing your point of view. Two final comments: we’re currently redesigning our New Hire Orientation and on-boarding experience such that we establish a realistic timeframe for new hires to get up to speed, learn about SVB’s products, services and culture, and deepen the new employee experience. Additionally, we’ve recently launched a cohesive career development experience called SVB Blueprint that we’re excited to roll out to more SVBers this year. We believe new employee onboarding and career development are key to our culture and success, and as such we’re dedicating significant financial resources to this efforts. Again, thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and concerns. I hope I was able to address some of your concerns. Best, -Chris
3.0
Sep 13, 2017
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Great client base Great reputation Most coworkers are highly motivated Great benefits program and a lot of people trying to do the right thing for our clients and for employees

Cons

Culture changing for the worse New executive leadership is trying to turning the company towards a big bank/Visa culture which doesn't match our client base Shoot first, ask later mentality

2.0
Sep 7, 2017

Destroyed IT Group

Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Very good pay and benefits Great market niche Global scope

Cons

The IT group was a professionally run unit up until 2013. Once the CEO's changed hands, the banking operations group was given the IT group with disastrous consequences that are still very evident to this day. The group lost/fired very competent senior leadership during the turn over and the IT group has essentially turned into order takers rather than being thought leaders. Culture has taken a devastating hit for the worst and is unlikely to recover. A real shame.

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