Pros
• Decent work-life balance. • Very good retirement plan. • As a major player in the casualty insurance industry, there is a ton of potential — if only they would realize it. See below.
Cons
• Overall compensation for such a large company is poor. Base salary is not competitive within the technology sector, and annual bonuses are a good 10% less than what you’ll find elsewhere. Health insurance plans are LAUGHABLE. Seriously, I’ve had better health benefits from startups. I can’t stress enough just how bad the health benefits are. If you are someone with a chronic illness, there’s a good chance you will not be able to afford to work here. • If you work in IT, then you’re a second class citizen at the company. If you’re fine with having your life’s work continually belittled by people that haven’t the remotest of idea of what it is that you actually do, then I guess Liberty is the place for you. If you’re in engineering management, then know that your job is busy work, and any decision that actually matters will be made by one of your handlers in product. • If you’re still reading, I’d imagine that you’re not shocked to find that the career ceiling at Liberty for engineers is quite low. To put it into perspective, the philosophy is that “high-performing engineers” should be “promoted into management.” Because, why would you want high-performing engineers writing and maintaining the systems that operate your enterprise? No need to answer the rhetorical question. The take away here is, if you’re a young engineer looking to grow your career, go elsewhere. You will not get the transferable skills and experience you need to be successful. Nor is the upward mobility at Liberty compelling enough for a life-long career investment. • It’s very difficult to explain, but there seems to be a pervasive attitude that doing “just enough to get by” is what makes Liberty great. Innovation gets talked about a lot, but doing anything different is “scary and weird.” Here’s a fun exercise, go into the place, and start talking about monolithic database architectures in the past tense. Then watch peoples’ heads twist off their necks, shoot up, hit the ceiling, and flutter back down to the floor like one of those hand-powered, dragonfly helicopter toys. The attachment to the obsolete at Liberty is plain bizarre. • Don’t get me wrong, there are some wonderful, talented people at Liberty Mutual. However, if/when you find them they are either jaded, marginalized, on their way out, or some combination thereof.
