This is definitely not the place for someone hoping for a quick rise to the top. They do promote from within (which I don't always think is good -- fabulous engineers don't always make great managers), but you can expect to hang out at Career Level for a long time before you get an opportunity like that.
As I mentioned, the health plan is definitely the lowlight of the benefits package. If you've got a family, plan on several thousand dollars a year of out of pocket expenses. The 401(k) match is good, but not stellar.
Working for a big company has its down sides. IT support, HR and benefits administration are all handled by outside contractors (we're all familiar with those call centers that give their hirees minimal training and a script to work off of, and do not seem to see english fluency as a basic job requirement). Long-time employees are usually aware of a local resource or two, but until you're "in the know", it can be hard to navigate life's basic administrative tasks.
It takes a long time to become a productive member of the team at this company. There's a lot of in-house innovation, which is great, but it does mean that most people come in to the job without much knowledge or skill specific to their work. (The up side of this that R&D Engineers have the most job security of anybody in the company -- it's incredibly expensive to train replacements.)
All the Re-Organizing and Re-Prioritizing can be really tiresome. That's any big company, though.
