This is more a review of the Liberty Mutual IT division than that of the core business or the senior leadership, which I feel is top notch and one of the best out there. Sadly, all those qualities do not transcend over to their IT leadership which is subpar at best. The crux of the problem lies with the engineering managers, whose main aim appears to be to stymie the software engineers under them. Promotions and ratings go to those people who are more vocal rather than capable and are in the engineering manager’s good books. It might also help if you are fair skinned which automagically puts you on a higher footing than the rest of the cattle. The main conundrum here is the fact that anyone (including the janitor) can become an engineering manager which basically precludes any notion of any technical experience, or any significant managerial acumen for that matter, which is needed for this post. This is actually very sad given that the engineering manager post is a vital cog in any IT structure which is supposed to nurture engineering talent and provide a pathway for career growth which is the lifeline for any organization. This is also probably the root cause of the constant exodus of young professionals from the company as has been observed for quite sometime. Another major cause for Liberty Mutual to be a significant failure as a potent IT hub is it’s Architecture group. This group is in no way related or connected to any of the many development teams and provides zero architectural guidance which is necessary for the success of any IT company. It is quite befuddling (to the point of being comical) as to what the directive of this group is. They constantly dole out documents which no team bothers to read or follow. Some of these architects struggle to perform basic activities such as successfully cloning a Git repository. And yet they keep spending millions on bringing external consulting groups every year to improve their architectural processes but to no avail. Also worth mentioning is that Liberty Mutual pays these people top dollar for little to no output. Also, be aware of retaliation from your manager should you be under suspicion of providing negative feedback in their monthly employee surveys (eNPS). This will result in you getting the cold shoulder and getting the snub for any career development activities, not to mention subpar performance reviews.
