Recommended with caution and a maximum of ~2 years employment
Pros
Flexible: The work schedule might be the biggest benefit of working here. You can just about come and go as you please, so long as your work is done, there is nothing pending and your work is good. Subject Matter Training: I think the company took the right route when they added internal training and education. It gives the company a sense of be engaged and that is a feeling that is often missing in the day to day. The people: I can rave about the people, specifically the doers, no not middle management, no not upper management, the people who do that same job you do and are the life-blood. Sure, there are some gossip circles and some negative people (the types we avoided since, oh I don't know, high school?) but wow did I get to work with some grand people. You will likely make longer friendships with the people you worked with than anyone else. As one of those said friends told me, "we've been through hell and back - its like a bond." Which I think says a lot about the moral here. They match your 401K up to like 6-7%, which is pretty awesome from the get-go and is nice that they took this approach. They do also give full health benefits and other various perks that kind of go hand-in-hand with a full coverage type of benefit.
Cons
Management: Let's just start it off by going straight for the throat. The management here, may be, one of the most unorganized, popularity bids I have ever encountered: I thought grad school and hospitals were cliquish and that now pales in comparison. You will experience but are not limited to: being lied to, being told you're combative or disobedient because you stood for something (usually you stood up for yourself), misinformed multiple times every week, forced to dance around egos as if you unwillingly entered a fire-walking competition, and most importantly, you will not be lead, instead you will be managed as a number. You will witness contemptible behavior. Do not mistake "being managed" as actual leadership and management skills: an organized 18 year old can "manage" some tasks but I would hardly rely on them for consistency or leadership. Heck, you may even get an email from a senior analyst with a CAMS and three years in that says something like, "well this is how its going down and that's final." So, forget your experience or actual skill, let alone legitimate concerns, someone might just throw a power move at you because they can and are too incompetent to think even 5-steps ahead of their own feet. Let alone have an intellectual debate about the whys and the why nots. Moral: People want to leave, wait, people are running to leave. Why you might ask? Because by in large (yes there are some exceptions) you will almost always get the thoughts and lingering feelings that no one above you really *cares* about your career. Example: While I think the internal education is awesome and they are willing to pay for the ACAMS - their bottom line here is to increase the $$$ next to the "per analyst" invoice they send to the client not to help make you a career with the company. You will not receive any of that extra $$$ - you will remain paid $20.00/hr. Additionally, there are no routes at all beyond team management. This is for many reasons and one of which is that the company seems to be highly adverse to the idea that automation and actual quantitative work is the catalyst to the next generation of AML/Fraud. Your clients and competition do it - why aren't you? Which is a good lead to the next point. Pay: Along with the aforementioned hamstrings to your career is your pay. You better darn well start to get good at haggling your salary and bonuses and anything else for that matter. It is not that I dislike the haggle game, it is the fact that we are working a skill based job with unequally skilled workers. Frankly, there are people you may like a lot but do not have people skills, real, critical thinking and an objective approach to solving the riddles that we see. The work is so grey that the people with the ability to create black and white scenarios should be paid more - not the people that management likes more or *thinks* is "management" material. Or just happens to work a lot. This is not a bash on the people, not at all, its just a fact of life that some people will be better at some things than other people; management seems to do nothing [effective] to use peoples strengths to build the company and individual teams as a whole. I knew a few people there that had skills enough to be full-stack developers but didn't want to move - last I heard they left the company anyway and moved.
