Experiences May Vary- Personal Experience Has Been Okay - Anonymous employee Discover Employee Review

3.0
Nov 1, 2012
Anonymous employee
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

Good for college students just wanting a part-time job then moving on to better opportunities. Management has been able to work with my school schedule but senior management has pulled some unscrupulous moves that even surprised me (I'm not one to be easily surprised). "Lifers" are those know to work for the company for a long time and most are nice. Pay can be good for amount of work involved to do job.

Cons

Ethics are often pushed to the limits if not violated at this company, one only needs to google the company to see the litany of lawsuits against it and fines it has had to pay ranging in the hundreds of millions of dollars. Career opportunities are limited and are based on seniority/favorability vs. meritocracy, at least in the company's operations sites. Experiences can vary from department to department and manager to manager, so basically you are rolling a dice. The company prides itself in being "innovative" so change occurs often which is not bad, but sometimes change occurs just for the sake of changing- sometimes change is not needed.

Explore other reviews about Discover

5.0
Mar 28, 2026
Recommend
CEO approval
Business Outlook

Pros

One of the most significant advantages of interning at Discover is the opportunity to work with massive, high-stakes financial datasets within a highly collaborative and mentorship-driven culture. Because the company manages millions of consumer accounts, you gain direct experience in how data-driven decisions impact risk management, credit modeling, and fraud detection in real time. The environment is known for being supportive of early-career professionals, offering structured learning paths and exposure to modern cloud-native infrastructures like AWS. Furthermore, the company’s strong focus on work-life balance and a clear pipeline for converting interns to full-time roles makes it an excellent "foot in the door" for anyone looking to build a career in fintech.

Cons

On the other hand, the primary drawback often stems from the inherent bureaucracy and heavy regulation of the banking industry, which can lead to slower project lifecycles and "red tape." You may find that a significant portion of your time is spent on repetitive data cleaning and maintaining legacy reporting systems rather than building the cutting-edge predictive models you might expect. Additionally, because Discover is a massive organization, your scope of work can sometimes feel siloed, making it difficult to see the end-to-end impact of your analysis across different departments. Finally, the current landscape of the industry means that internal shifts or large-scale corporate restructuring can occasionally lead to uncertainty regarding team directions or long-term project stability.

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