I’ve been reading this board for over a year, and it’s depressing—Wells Fargo’s IT culture is still a toxic dumpster fire, maybe worse than ever. A year ago, posts (https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1rZD3QH0) called WF “anti-IT,” with backstabbing, siloed teams, and “wagile” micromanagement. Now, EFT’s “upcoming changes” to its Agile Operating Model (https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1js25krmm) sound like another fake fix—more “fake” scrum masters, Jira he-l, or H1B outsourcing (India taking credit). Will it ever get better? I got laid off from WF a few years ago, coasting toward retirement, quietly quitting, ignoring the 2016 "accounts scandal" (16M accounts ) and the revolving-door CEOs. I tolerated the bullying managers and “wagile” chaos (old waterfall mixed with agile, projects failing, workers blamed). Then I found posts here citing Amy Edmondson’s The Fearless Organization. I got the audiobook, and it hit hard—WF’s fear (layoffs, 40,000 gone), blame and scapegoating. Huge thanks to those posters for waking me up to WF’s rot, from 2016’s client abuse to 2025’s worker abuse (bullying, “battle fatigue”). To new hires: read this board, study WF’s scandals (accounts, “wagile” fails), and get the he-l out. Is EFT’s new agile model (under Bridget Engle or a new head post-Jason Strle) fixing anything, or just piling on more toxicity? EFT folks, what’s the vibe—hope or despair?
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You're not wrong it is a big burning boat of smelly baby diapers and the managers are really to blame because they're too focused on trying to make the Indian executives happy with their friendship approach instead of actually doing their jobs. None of the executives down to the managers actually understand what the cloud is they still think it's a object in the sky that magically holds the data and somehow we have a device that can grab it from the sky and put it on Wells Fargo devices. Then there is the engineer/analyst titling where analysts are encouraged to not even think someone needs to provide them a walkable script with pictures so they never fail and the engineers are expected to put in 60 plus hours a week with no extra compensation and create miracles with no manpower no resources and no manager backing. Also technology overall is encouraged to not take risk, if there's risk, a potential risk of any kind then it must be avoided.
Then there is the sociopathic methodology for which technology implemented agile.... It's basically a cliche of every DMV scenario and TV where you can spend days weeks months or even years trying to get paperwork but the bureaucracy that it is prevents you from even doing it correctly.
It's only going to get worse...
Trust me, all of product and agile transformation hate it too. It had so much promise, but it will never work until leadership gives up the command and control culture. We'll never be agile and ironically, I'd say the quality and risk have increased significantly since 2016. In the waterfall gantt chart days, we actually had robust testing, documentation and processes in place to support it. Now it's just madness. Between poor India implementation / laziness and lack of resources, it's just a matter of time until a major failure. I won't invest in WF stock due to that alone. Too much risk. Lastly, what's with all the pushing for AI? What AI? Where is this mythical AI we're supposed to be learning? It's not like I can just go out to ChatGPT on my work computer and have it help me. Why are you wasting our time in town halls talking about something that is probably 10 years out knowing the speed at which we move.
@OP. Thanks for this retrospective. I looked at this year old post at https://www.thelayoff.com/t/1rZD3QH0 you referenced titled "Is it a good idea to join Wells Fargo now? Wonder if the person joined Wells Fargo. Maybe he/she joined a good team and likes being in this place.
I doubt it. I compared this post to the posts today. Posts today are a lot more shorter -- maybe more despair. Well they gave Agile a shot.. maybe AI is next?
Despair. Pure and simple.
Wells agile is a joke. The entire IT is a joke
Executives used agile as an excuse to shorten delivery timeframes for the same amount of work. They are trying to push everyone until it breaks so they can fire for underperformance and offshore the work.
Don't call it Agile here because Wells Fargo does not do Agile. The reason you think it is toxic because it is not real Agile, the WF method is a hybrid of Waterfall and Agile, which wouldn't work. Lots of politics, bureaucracy and the "Do as I say" approach constantly coming from above. So don't blame Agile because it's not Agile, but blame the WF upper management.
WFC doesn't do agile as it should be applied. Like most things, they take a decent concept and totally ba----dize it beyond recognition.
@a3+1js3120rh completely agree. Waterfall "w-agile" at its worst. Maybe Hybrid on a good day.
Waterfall wrapped in Agile